Vin and Amy Hit the Streets
by thatmeddlingkid
Summary: Mafia AU. When his grandfather is murdered and his brother goes missing, Lovino must team up with paranoid casino worker Amelia to traverse the dangerous world of organized crime and find answers.
1. The Hit

"Watch where you're going, asshole!" Lovino snapped as yet another elbow jabbed into his side. "You'd think everyone here was fucking blind!"

"I'm sure they're not blind, it's just really crowded," Antonio replied helpfully.

"I _know_ that, dumbass, it's a figure of speech."

Lovino knew that there was little use in getting mad at Antonio, but he was in too of a bad a mood to care. They'd been wandering around the park for an hour waiting for the rally to begin. The mid-afternoon sun beating down on the crowd of thousands was unbearable and Lovino was seriously rethinking his choice to wear a suit during this part of the summer. In fact, he was seriously rethinking his choice to come at all. He'd only shown up because Feliciano had talked him into it, and now that Lovino was there, his brother was nowhere to be found.

It was seriously pissing him off.

"What time is it? They should have started ages ago!" Lovino didn't wait for Antonio to pull up his sleeve to check his watch before shoving further through the crowd. It didn't matter what time it was, not that Antonio picked up on that. Lovino just wanted to complain. It made him feel better.

The duo made their way closer and closer to the podium, halfheartedly keeping an eye out for Feliciano. When they had finally reached the edge of the crowd, Lovino caught sight of a familiar face. Unfortunately, it did not belong to his brother but rather to his only other biological family member. Lovino's grandfather stood at the base of the platform stairs, talking to one of his associates, someone Lovino never bothered to remember the name of. Looming over the old man was his stern bodyguard, a man Lovino had grown up knowing as Beilschmidt.

Part of Lovino wanted to get his grandfather's attention and tell him to hurry the hell up. Another part refused to acknowledge the man's existence. Before Lovino could finish his internal debate, his grandfather shook the associate's hand and turned to march purposefully up the stairs, waving at the cheering crowd. Lovino's jaw clenched as he watched the man step up to the podium and prepare the microphone, chuckling lightheartedly when the screeching feedback tore across the lawn.

Lovino's grandfather was handsome, even in his old age, sharp lines on his face only serving to make him look more dramatic. His gray hair was combed elegantly and he wore a suit not unlike Lovino's but of much higher quality, and without the wrinkles brought on by sweat. How he had managed to avoid that in the summer heat, Lovino had no idea, much to his irritation.

"I want to start off by thanking everyone who took the time to come here today." His voice was a perfect mixture of confident and friendly, an extra bit of charm added by his accent.

Lovino winced.

"I mean this from the bottom of my heart when I say that we couldn't have done this without the support of every single one of you hardworking people. You hardworking Italian-Americans." The last bit brought on another cheer from the crowd.

"Too often in this country, our people are pushed aside, stepped on, called criminals. Are we criminals?" He paused to let the audience answer before continuing with an affirmation. "No! We are good, honest people who work hard to support our families. To support our communities."

Lovino found himself rolling his eyes at the words, not because they were false in a broad sense, certainly many people at the rally were good, honest people, and Lovino had faced his own fair share of ethnic discrimination. His grandfather, however, was probably the last person in the world with a right to say that.

"We are here because we believe that it's time to say ENOUGH t…"

He fell forward suddenly, as if he were a ragdoll that had been dropped. The back of his head was a mess of pink, red, and gray. He twitched a bit, his jaw hanging open in a manner more undignified than Lovino had ever seen it. After what seem like a century but couldn't have been more than a few moments, he stopped moving, still slumped over the podium. As Lovino stared into his grandfather's wide, unblinking eyes it was clear that Don Vargas, leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in the city was, without a doubt, dead.

 ** _Twenty-one hours earlier._**

Lovino grunted as he lifted his suitcase of the baggage claim carousel, his shoulders still stiff from the airplane seat. Uncomfortable seating aside, it hadn't been a bad trip, as far as they go. But it still wasn't enough to make up for what Lovino knew was to come. As he entered the pick-up area, Lovino scanned the room for his brother. Feliciano had said he would be there, but Lovino knew better than to be without skepticism.

"Lovi, over here!"

Lovino let out a sigh of relief and turned toward the shout. His brother stood across the room waving, accompanied by two other men that Lovino couldn't recognize from so far away. As he got closer, he realized one of them was Antonio, a man who had worked for the family for years, mainly as some variety of dumb muscle. The other man was tall and muscular, with a stern face and blond hair slicked back. Lovino couldn't help but think he looked familiar, but it was a fleeting thought that was forgotten when Lovino took a good look at his brother. It had been years since he saw Feliciano in the flesh, but the idea that his brother was no longer a teenage kid anymore hadn't sunk in yet. He was still skinny, but in less of an awkward way, his body parts more proportionate. His smile was just as bright as ever, but the years had given him stronger facial features that many would consider handsome. However, the most shocking thing of all was how tall he was. He wasn't that tall, truth be told, but he was taller than Lovino, which irked the older man. It wasn't that he was bitter about being short, because that was something he had come to terms with a long time ago. Lovino had just assumed that if there was any man he'd be taller than it would be his own little brother.

"Lovi!" Feliciano squealed, pulling his brother into a suffocating hug, "Ican'tbelieveyou'rehereI'vemissedyousomuchIt'sbeenforeverYoulooksoshortnow…"

As he rambled on and on Lovino tried not to focus on the sinking feeling in his stomach. Feliciano shouldn't be so happy to see him. Not with how he left. Not with how he avoided everything for so long. His brother was apparently just as forgiving now as he had been had always thought it was something he should work on, but he couldn't bring himself to tell him.

After finally releasing Lovino from the vice-like embrace, Feliciano gestured towards Antonio. "Lovi, you remember Toni, right?"

Of course he did. Antonio had been a pain in the ass for as long as he had known him. Lovino was honestly surprised that he was still around, though. Working for the mafia often sent someone to an early grave, especially someone as thick as Antonio. Lovino might have admitted that he was a bit hard on the guy, if he was the type to admit things. He wasn't though, so Antonio was firmly placed in a section of his mind reserved for annoying idiots.

"Lovi!" Antonio cooed, mussing up Lovino's hair. He either didn't notice or completely ignored the subsequent glare. "Feli's right, I think you have gotten shorter!"

"And you've gotten dumber," Lovino deadpanned, annoyed at the chuckle his insult brought on.

Feliciano giggled as well before grabbing the arm of the other man. "You remember Ludwig too, right?"

"Beilschmidt?" Lovino asked, incredulous. Ludwig Beilschmidt was the son of their grandfather's faithful bodyguard, so he'd been around often enough when they were younger. When Lovino had left, he was barely a teenager. Now he looked like he could bench-press an oak tree. He'd be intimidating if he didn't have a small, goofily smiling man hanging on him.

"Yeah, that's the one! He's my bodyguard now!"

Ludwig stiffly held out his arm for a handshake. "It's nice to see you again," he mumbled awkwardly. He had done a lot of awkward mumbling in his youth as well, so Lovino supposed that some things never changed.

"I take it you're going to be my bodyguard?" Lovino guessed, turning to face Antonio.

"You bet, Lovi! Just like old times!"

Lovino grimaced at the thought. He'd had been trying to forget old times. Plus, he wasn't exactly looking forward to having Antonio breathing over his shoulder the entire time he was visiting.

The group walked out the doors onto the curb next to a busy traffic circle. Feliciano led to way to a black limo parked right in front of the building. Lovino rolled his eyes at the vehicle. It was exactly the kind of thing he should have expected.

As soon as the chauffeur began driving, Feliciano resumed his babbling, mostly about things Lovino found to be pretty pointless. In a way he was glad. There were questions he needed to ask his brother, but not in front of an audience, no matter how trustworthy the bodyguards seemed.

After a while, Lovino noticed that they were not going in the direction of the family's townhouse. It became especially peculiar when the signs ceased to be written in English.

"Feliciano, why are we in Chinatown?"

"Grandpa is meeting with a new business associate. We're here to pick him up."

That surprised Lovino a bit. There was a chance the meeting was for legitimate business, but it was rather small. The family's Italian restaurant was mostly staffed by close friends, and their supplies were usually bought from sources nearby. It didn't make much sense for them to be talking to people on the other side of the city, let alone in an area specializing in an entirely different style of food. The family wasn't big on fusion cuisine. Even so, it seemed even less likely that the meeting was for one of the many illegitimate businesses that his grandfather ran. As far he knew, the family had never had a relationship with any of the Chinese gangs. Admittedly, however, Lovino didn't know much anymore. A lot can happen in five years, and with Lovino's only connection to the family being occasional phone calls to his flaky brother, there's a lot he could have missed.

The limo stopped in front of a red building with a huge golden dragon painted across an awning. A sign hanging from the side indicated that it housed a restaurant named Wang's Authentic Taste of China. It was tacky, in Lovino's opinion, he spent a moment feeling annoyed that the family would associate with whoever owned it before reminding himself that he didn't care anymore. Feliciano said something about being a bit early and waiting in the car until they were done. Lovino figured his grandfather had told them not to come get him personally because he was embarrassed of them. He always had been.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for Lovino, who was satisfied with putting off the reunion, they didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, the gaudy gold door of the restaurant opened and Don Vargas, followed closely by Beilschmidt, stepped out. The years had apparently done nothing to him as he looked the same as always. Beilschmidt, on the other hand, looked a bit grayer around the edges. When the two men climbed into the limo, Lovino couldn't help but note how much Ludwig looked like his father.

There was a moment of silence as the air in the back of the vehicle turned tense. Internally, Lovino panicked. This was the absolute last place he wanted to be right now and he mentally pummeled himself for agreeing to come. He had sworn so many times that he would never go back. Yet here he was, staring into the eyes of the person he hated more than anything just because his brother begged him to. He hoped Feliciano was happy.

"So, Lovino," his grandfather began in Italian, "How's the job search coming?"

Lovino narrowed his eyes. The man was baiting him, still angry after all of those years. Well, Lovino was angry too, and he refused to give him the satisfaction.

"I've been working at the same place for about three years now. Managing it for about nine months. Nice business. Authentic Italian cuisine."

It was a Pizza Hut, but nobody needed to know that.

"Oh, that's great," the old man replied, his voice dripping with smugness, "I have to say though, I still don't know why you had to run off to get a business degree when you ended up doing the same work you could have been doing if you stayed. It's not as if we would have requested a resume."

"I wanted to manage a real restaurant."

Lovino smirked as his grandfather scowled. "Since when is Roma's not a real restaurant?"

"Since you started storing dead guys in the freezer."

"Lovi," Feliciano interrupted softly, "Please, don't do this here."

"It's alright, Feli," his grandfather assured, "I'm the one who asked. If your brother thinks it's more important to chase mediocre dreams than to protect and support his family, I can't stop him. I just hope you're a better man than he is."

"Please," Feliciano tried again, "Both of you, stop. For just a little while"

Neither of them responded, but they both turned away from each other.

Antonio leaned over to Ludwig. "Do you speak Italian?" he whispered, though it was too small a space for anyone to miss what he said. "Because I have no idea what they just said." Ludwig slowly shook his head.

They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

By the time the limo rolled to a stop in front of the family's lavish townhouse, everyone was ready to jump out for a breather. Lovino and Feliciano stood awkwardly on the curb while their grandfather stomped through the front door without looking at them. His bodyguard nodded an awkward goodbye as he left to go home. The other four lookm at each other in silence.

"I'm making pasta," his brother said lamely, "And I already got most of the prep done before we came to get you, so it shouldn't be too long. If you want to go ahead and get settled in the gue...I mean, your old room…"

"Yeah, thanks, Feli." Lovino grabbed his suitcase, brushing of Antonio's attempt to help him with it.

When the renovation happened, Feliciano sore to Lovino that he did everything he could to talk their grandfather out of getting rid of the latter's childhood bedroom. Lovino guessed he was supposed to be upset with the choice, but in all honesty, he didn't really care. When he left, he took everything important to him anyway. Almost everything.

After taking about a half an hour alone to collect his thoughts, Lovino headed towards the kitchen, thankful that the route didn't take him anywhere near where his grandfather would be. Antonio was setting the table in the dining room, sheepishly explaining that Feliciano asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner. Lovino noticed only four place settings, and none were at the head of the table, which meant that their grandfather wouldn't be eating with them. He asked Antonio just to make sure.

"Feli said he ate at that meeting, so he's not going to eat with us."

Lovino nodded in approval. If he managed to avoid his grandfather for the duration of his trip, he might be able to survive the next few days. That thought, along with the fantastic smell wafting from the next room lifted his spirits, if only a little. Lovino stuck his head through the doorway to the kitchen. He saw Feliciano and Ludwig standing side by side in front of the counter, piling the pasta onto four dinner plates together. Their backs were facing the door, but Lovino could hear them laughing about something, his brother's high-pitched giggles tumbling over the blond's low, steady chuckle.

"Feliciano," Lovino said, maybe a bit louder than necessary. He watched with amusement as his brother jumped. Ludwig turned to look at him, his mouth snapping shut into a frown and his face turning slightly pink. "Do you need any help?"

"Help? Uh, no, don't worry about it. We're done."

Lovino nodded, smiling slightly, before turning back around to take a seat. To his slight annoyance, Antonio plopped down next to him. Feliciano and Ludwig came out a moment later, each holding two plates. After serving the food, they sat across from the other two men. It wasn't long before Feliciano and Antonio started chatting. Ludwig ate silently, presumably still embarrassed about having been caught expressing another emotion besides seriousness. Lovino half listened to their mundane conversation as he enjoyed his meal. Feliciano had always been an amazing cook, and Lovino had always been a bit envious of that. Now, his brother's food was one of only a handful of things Lovino missed from before he left.

The bodyguards left after dinner, each receiving a wave-off when they offered to help with the dishes, followed by and enthusiastic hug from Feliciano. Finally alone with his brother, and without a chance for Feliciano to hang up the phone and avoid the conversation Lovino took the chance to ask him the questions he'd been saving up.

"You have to tell me the truth about this," he began, firmly grasping his brother's shoulders, "Has he gotten you involved in any mob stuff?"

"No, nothing illegal!" Feliciano answered frantically.

"I didn't ask if it was illegal, Feli," Lovino stressed, knowing his brother was trying to avoid answering, "I asked if had to do with the mob."

"He's had me run errands for him…"

"What kind of errands?"

"Nothing big! You know, just passing along messages, or collecting money, or buddying up to people."

"He hasn't got you doing anything dangerous, right?"

"I mean, I don't think so? I guess everything is a little dangerous around here."

"He hasn't told you to hurt anyone, has he?"

"No! Not at all! Lovi, you know I couldn't…"

"Yeah," Lovino sighed, "I know." He put his head in his hands and swore under his breath, then once more out loud. Their grandfather had always said Feliciano was the soft one of the two. Lovino had hoped that meant he wouldn't get coerced into doing anything, and maybe it did for now, but he had no idea how long that would last.

"Lovi," his brother said tentatively, "I promise everything is fine. You don't have to worry."

"I don't have to worry? My little brother's stuck in the middle of a shit show! How long do you think it'll be before everyone in the family is trying to get you made? You need to get out of here!"

"I can't…"

"Of course you can! Come back with me. You can stay at my place for as long as you need."

"Lovino!. I. Can't."

"Why not?"

Feliciano opened his mouth, then shut it. Then he opened it again and shut it again. Tears started streaming down his face.

'Fuck, Feli, don't cry," Lovino groaned, "Listen, we can talk about this tomorrow. Let's just get some sleep for now."

Feliciano nodded, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "The rally is at two tomorrow, but Antonio's coming to pick you up at twelve-thirty. I have some errands to run in the morning, so I'll meet you there."

"Alright, sounds fine." The men walk quietly to the hallway containing their bedrooms. Lovino cracked open his door before feeling Feliciano's hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Lovi? Everything is going to be okay."

Lovino let out a heavy sigh. "Just promise me you'll think about what I said. About leaving."

"I promise,"

"Good night, Feli."

"Good night, Lovi."

Lovino slipped into the room and turned around. The last thing he saw before shutting the door were his brother's sad eyes.

Lovino didn't hear the sound of the first gunshot. He didn't hear the sounds of the other gunshots, nor the screams of the crowd. He stood frozen in place, not ten feet away from his grandfather's still figure. It wasn't until Antonio roughly grabbed his shoulders and shook him that Lovino registered what had happened.

"Lovi!" Antonio shouted from behind him, "You have to move! We have to get out of here!"

He let Antonio guide him, trusting the bodyguard to keep him from tripping. Antonio kept trying to push his head down, but Lovino lifted it anyway in an attempt to see what was going on. The shots continued to ring out quickly but steadily. Lovino saw people drop to the ground. He recognized nearly all of them as members of the family, from low-level associates to his grandfather's most trusted men. A wave of dread washed over Lovino as he realized what that meant.

"Antonio," he yelled out at last, "Where's Feliciano?"

The bodyguard continued to push him, not giving any indication that he heard. Lovino planted his feet on the ground and turned to face him.

"Antonio!" he repeated, "Where's Feliciano?"

"I don't...I don't know!" he finally answered. He straightened up to looked over the crowd. "I can't see h…"

Lovino screamed as Antonio lurched forward onto him, the man's head no longer intact. Summoning more strength than he knew he had, Lovino shoved the much heavier body off before it could push him to the ground.

Then he ran, harder than he ever had before. Lovino ran until his lungs ached and his heart felt like it would burst. He ran until he was out of the park and down the street. And the entire time he ran, Lovino couldn't help but notice how cold he felt. 

**Author's note:**

I so excited to finally be sharing this with ya'll. I've been working on it forever and it will be by far the longest thing I have ever written.

Anyway, some important notes. First, this is supposed to be taking place during the mid-1970's, even if I never explicitly say so. I'm a history major, so I personally place a lot of importance in the time period when writing from certain perspectives. Also, the city this story takes place in is intentionally vague because I didn't want to put in extra work having to calculate distances and stuff when it might get in the way of storytelling. It's a big, heterogeneous city based loosely after New York or Chicago, but feel free to picture it as whatever you want. I don't plan on being specific enough for it to really matter.

In case you didn't know or couldn't tell, the assassination of this version of Ancient Rome was based off of the murder of famous crime boss Joe Columbo, who was also shot while at an Italian-American pride rally. In real life, however, Columbo wasn't killed instantly but was instead paralyzed for seven years before dying. The scene was also based partially off the movie _The Warriors,_ in which a gang is framed for murdering another gang's leader at yet another rally. It's a great movie that I highly recommend.


	2. Alliances

Lovino forced himself to stop running a few blocks away from the park, fearing his legs would give out. He stumbled into an alley to catch his breath. Instead, he bent down and vomited until there was nothing left but hot bile that burned his throat and made his eyes water. Leaning against a dumpster, he swore before wiping off his mouth with his sleeve. It was already wet. Knowing what he was going to find, Lovino glanced down to see that the front of his suit was covered in blood and bits of…

He retched again, and hurriedly peeled off his jacket, shirt, and tie, leaving only a white wife-beater. He tried to wipe his face with the clean part of his shirt before giving up and throwing all three items into the dumpster. This part of the city was near his family's townhouse,and he knew there was a public restroom right around the corner.

Legs still shaky, Lovino hobbled down the street, looking like some sort of zombie. It was times like this he was especially grateful for the apathy that often befel residents of crowded cities.

With the first bit of luck he had seen all day, Lovino found the restroom unoccupied. He slammed the door and, with a bit more more effort than normal due to his trembling hands, bolted it shut. Even with the dim lighting and dingy mirror, Lovino could see himself clearly, and was satisfied to note that he looked better than he thought he would. But only slightly. His hair, damp with sweat, flopped down onto his forehead. Everything from his gaunt face to his skinny arms was red and blotchy from the heat and sudden activity. But at the very least, there was only a little blood left on his skin, the rest of which was quickly rinsed off.

Lovino paced around the room, though in such a limited space it look more like he was spinning in circles. He knew that the whoever was doing the shooting was aiming for family members, which meant that he could very well have a target on his back. Feliciano would too, if he wasn't already dead. Lovino and Antonio had looked for him for over an hour before the shooting had even begun, and they didn't see him anywhere. They didn't see Ludwig either for that matter. The giant blond should have been sticking out like a sore thumb among a crowd of Italians. Lovino held on to the hope that they weren't at the rally yet, mostly because he couldn't bear the alternative.

He exhaled slowly. Feliciano told him he would meet them at the park. If he wasn't there yet, he was probably still out running the errands he said he had, the nature of which Lovino cursed himself for not inquiring about the night before. Even if Feliciano was en route to the park, he would surely pick up on the panic and have the sense to stay away. Okay, maybe not. Feliciano wasn't the most sensible, after all. But Ludwig was, if he was anything like his father.

Lovino reasoned that the duo would attempt to hide out someplace safe. Unfortunately, he had no idea where that could be besides the townhouse and the family restaurant. Obviously, there had been a number of hideouts from the old days, but crime syndicates don't like to become too predictable. The contact he'd had with his brother over the years had led him to believe that things had changed, but he never thought he'd need a reason to find out more.

Resolving himself, Lovino decided his best bet at this point was to check the townhouse, then, if they weren't there, go to the restaurant. They were obvious spots, sure, but he didn't really have much of a choice. Pushing all thoughts of worse-case scenarios to the back of his head, Lovino unlocked the bathroom door and set out.

The house was only a few blocks away, so the trip wasn't a hassle. Lovino forced himself to walk the entire way, despite his deeper desire to get there as quick as possible. He was no athlete, and in the case of more trouble, it would do him no good to be winded. Plus, there was a very good chance the house was being watched, and a small man running around in nothing but an undershirt was sure to draw attention.

As he approached the townhouse, Lovino scanned the surrounding area for anything suspicious. Sure enough, parked across the street was a Lincoln Continental with windows so darkly tinted it was impossible to see inside. If the place was being watched, which it almost certainly was, that meant that nobody had entered since the car had been parked there. How long that had been, Lovino didn't know, but the shooting clearly required a lot of planning, so he figured it was a safe bet to assume that the Continental had arrived shortly after they left, just in case something went wrong. Making sure to keep his pace steady, Lovino walked straight past the house, not even glancing in its direction.

He made his way to the family restaurant, a few more blocks away, just on the Southern edge of Little Italy. There too was another tinted Continental, confirming his suspicions. Once again, Lovino walked off without interacting.

When he was a good distance away, Lovino paused to collect his thoughts. He was alone in this massive city, his only source of protection gone, and he had no idea where to go or what to do next. In an amazing feat of self-restraint that he resolved to applaud himself on at a more appropriate time, Lovino did not panic. Panicking, no matter how good it might feel, would not make things better.

Lovino continued to wrack his brain for anything useful. It seemed hopeless. The phone calls he had shared with Feliciano weren't spent discussing the mafia, as both brothers tended to avoid that short time he had been in town had likewise given him little idea of what the family had been up to, except…

He perked up at the thought of a possible lead. It may be a long shot, but it was better than nothing. Lovino was going to Chinatown.

The trek across town was longer than Lovino had hoped it would be, but a quick shuffle through his wallet had told him that he had a limited amount of cash that would be better used somewhere else. Soon enough anyway, he stood in front of the tacky red building, staring at the golden dragon with apprehension. It struck him that he had no real sense of the relationship between the two syndicates. For all Lovino knew, the meeting from yesterday was the first. There was also the chance that this restaurant wasn't even connected to his grandfather's new associate. Meetings at third party locations weren't uncommon. Of course, if they wanted to keep the location neutral, they would probably pick a place that didn't have ties to the Chinese nor the , despite the reservations, Lovino had nothing else to go on, so he tried his best to look as put together as possible, and marched inside.

The interior was just as gaudy as the outside, with red walls adorned with golden dragons and tapestries covered in Chinese writing. There were quite a few tables crammed into the limited space, but most of them were empty, typical for a late afternoon. Besides the handful of old customers, the only other people were two young Asian women leaning behind the front counter and a young Asian busboy wiping down tables. The women were chatting in a language Lovino didn't understand, but assumed to be Chinese. They both wore Chinese-style blouses that Lovino didn't know the term for, the kind that buttoned up in the front and had high collars. The taller one was in a green uniform, and her hair was pulled into a low ponytail. The shorter one wore pink, and her hair was down with a few flowers pinned into it. They didn't look up when he approached the counter.

"Excuse me," Lovino said, softer than he probably would have if they were men.

"How many in your party?" the pink one, her name tag said Mei, asked with disinterest.

"None, I mean…" Lovino hoped to god he wasn't about to embarrass himself. "I need to talk to Mr. Wang."

"Mr. _Wong_ ," Mei corrected at the same time the green one, Lien, asked "Do you have an appointment?"

So _Wang's Authentic Taste of China_ wasn't just a name. Lovino only hoped Wang was who he was looking for, or at the very least, could point him in the right direction. The uncertainty that raised up in him was ignored, as Lovino learned over the years that pretending like you knew what you were talking about was usually the best way to get what you wanted.

"No," Lovino answered, "He's a business associate of my grandfather's. It's an emergency."

Lien scanned him with suspicion. "Name?"

"Lovino Vargas."

Both pairs of eyes widened at that. The women whispered back and forth to each other in Chinese. Lovino tried his best not to look awkward. Finally, Mei snapped her fingers at the busboy.

"Yong Soo!" she shouted.

He looked up with raised eyebrows. She said something to him in that Lovino, once again, couldn't understand. He answered back, gesturing towards the table he was wiping down. Mei rolled her eyes and replied in a more annoyed tone. Lovino watched them argue back and forth, flinching when he heard his last name being spoken. He wondered if this was how it felt for people when he spoke in Italian. Finally, Yong Soo groaned and threw down his rag before shuffling over to Lovino.

"Follow me," he grumbled.

The teenager led him to a room in the back which turned out to be a stairwell. The second floor contained a short hallway. They stopped at the closed door at the end, and Yong Soo knocked firmly. A rather androgynous voice called out a question in Chinese.

"I've got Vargas's grandson," Yong Soo answered, his voice distinctly more polite than it had been before.

"Come in," the voice replied in heavily accented English.

The boy opened the door and nodded for Lovino to walk in. Lovino heard it click shut behind him as he took in the room. It was larger than he had expected, dimly lit, and decorated like the rest of the restaurant, keeping with the red and gold dragon motif. Two arm chairs rested in the corner to his left, in each of which sat a man, one with spiked up hair and glasses and the other very small with a shiny black bowl cut. They looked at Lovino with curiosity. Another armchair stood directly in the middle of the room facing a massive black desk. Behind the desk sat a third man, who Lovino figured was Wang. He wore a red traditional-looking shirt and his hair was swept into a ponytail that laid over his shoulder. His head was down as he wrote something on a notepad.

"Mr. Vargas, please sit down," he said without looking up. "I'm sorry about the circumstances surrounding your grandfather, though I must say I was deeply relieved to hear of your escape."

Lovino lowered himself onto the empty armchair. A moment later, the man looked up. He was younger than Lovino expected, maybe in his thirties. Immediately, a flash of confusion swept over his face.

"You're not Feliciano Vargas," he stated bluntly.

"No, I'm not," Lovino affirmed, "I'm his brother."

"Brother? Forgive me, but I don't recall your grandfather mentioning a second grandson."

"We aren't an the best of terms. Weren't."

Wang blinked, then stood up to hold out his hand. "Mr. Vargas, I think it would be best for me to formally introduce myself first. I am Wang Yao, or Yao Wang if you go by western conventions."

Lovino shook his hand cautiously. He didn't know how to read this guy yet, and it bothered him.

"I assume you are familiar with the type of business your grandfather conducts."

Lovino nodded. He didn't think extortion, loan sharking, and protection racketing were considered legitimate business, but he had the sense not to say so out loud.

"I am not in the same kind of business. But legally speaking, our circumstances are similar. Several months ago, we came to a series of agreements, most of which revolve around peace and cooperation between our organizations."

"You said you heard of Feliciano's escape?" Lovino knew his tone was harsh, but he wasn't here to learn about his grandfather's dealings.

"Ah, yes. Though I must stress that the information I have is limited."

"I don't care. Tell me everything you know."

"As soon as we heard about the incident, I had my men investigate the scene before law enforcement showed up." He held out his hand and the bespectacled man handed him a paper. Wang in turn handed it to Lovino.

"They made of list of every dead body they found. If they could not recognize them by face, they checked their ID's."

Lovino scanned the list. His grandfather's name was first, unsurprisingly, followed directly by Beilschmidt. The other members of the administration were next, and after that there was a combination of captains and soldiers. He winced when he read _Antonio Fernandez Carriedo,_ remembering his sickening last moments with the man. Overall, it seemed like most of the family was hit.

"As you can see, your brother is not listed."

Lovino wanted to cry with relief. Instead, he looked Wang steadily in the eye.

"Do you know if they had any safehouses? Any meeting places."

Wang shrugged sympathetically. "I do not. I apologize, but your grandfather and I did not find it best to share that information with each other."

Lovino swore under his breath as he ran his hands through his hair. Knowing Feliciano survived the shooting meant almost nothing if he was still missing.

"Do you have any idea where he could be?"

"I think in the best case scenario, he is hiding out somewhere."

"And in the worst?"

Wang sighed heavily. "Do you know who killed your grandfather?"

It suddenly occurred to Lovino that in the midst of things, he hadn't even thought about it. "Do you?"

"Not for sure, but I have a pretty good idea of who it might be."

"Who?" Lovino was getting annoyed with having to pull information out like this.

"Lately, we, both your grandfather and I, have been having trouble with Ivan Braginsky."

Lovino didn't know who that was, but judging by the name…

"The Russians?"

Wang nodded.

Lovino felt his stomach drop. He should have guessed they were to blame. The Russian mafia specialized in murder-for-hire. If they had beef with any other syndicate, they certainly had the resources to deal with it.

"They have been especially aggressive in the past few months, venturing outside of their territory and picking fights. That was part of the reason your grandfather and I began our alliance."

"Do you think they could have tracked Feliciano down?"

"Perhaps. Unfortunately, Mr. Vargas, I know as much as you in that regard."

Lovino huffed in frustration.

"I can say this," Wang continued, "From what I know about Ivan Braginsky, he does not like it when things don't go his way."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means there are worse things than getting shot in the head. If the Russians find your brother, or if they've already found him, I can guarantee he will not die quickly. There is, however, a silver lining in this."

By this time, Lovino had already lept up from the chair and taken to pacing the office. He snapped his head towards Wang. "How could there _possibly_ be a silver lining in this?"

"It buys us time, Mr. Vargas," he replied calmly, "Braginsky is dramatic. He likes to draw things out. It's barbaric, but it'll let us find your brother before anything too bad happens."

Lovino didn't want to think about what that could mean.

"Rest assured, Mr. Vargas, I have eyes all around the city, and right now they're all searching for your brother. The agreement I shared with your grandfather called for this type of support in the event one of us was murdered. As soon as we track Feliciano down, we will insure his safety. Retaliation against the Russians is also a priority."

"I can't say that's all that fucking reassuring." If anything, the meeting made Lovino feel worse. Not only did it not bring him closer to finding Feliciano, he learned that his brother was being targeted by a sadistic madman. A sadistic madman who very well may be on the lookout for Lovino too.

"I'm sorry to hear that. If you would like, I'd be happy to take your phone number so I can call you when we find him."

Lovino thought about the car parked in front of the townhouse. "You wouldn't happen to have your people posted in Lincoln Continentals with tinted windows, would you?"

Wang shook his head, a baffled expression on his face.

"Then I don't think I'll have access to my home phone for a while."

Wang scratched something down on a notepad and ripped it off to give to Lovino. "In that case, please take my personal number. Call us if you find your brother, or if you need anything."

Lovino grabbed the paper and begrudgingly stuffed it into his pocket. "Thanks," he mumbled.

"I hope things look up for us soon." Wang turned towards the two men in the corner. "Would one of you please escort Mr. Vargas out?"

The one with the bowl cut stepped forward with a slight bow. He opened the door and gestured for Lovino to come. They walked in silence down the hallway. As they walked down the stairs, Lovino mulled over everything he had learned. Suddenly, about halfway down the steps, a strong grip on his shoulder pulled Lovino out of his thoughts. Before he could say anything, the small man put a finger against his mouth to shush him.

"Listen very carefully," he whispered, "I know someone who can help you. You must go to the Monte Carlo Casino. This is the address." He shoved a piece of paper into Lovino's hand. "You must go to the Monte Carlo and find Amy Jones. She works there. When you find her, tell her you know her real name is Amelia Williams. Then, and this is the most important part, so pay attention, you will need to say these words exactly: 'We were the best in the state, but we should have been the best in the nation'. If you do all of that, I promise you, she will help you more than Yao ever could."

"Why should I trust you?" Lovino whispered back

"You don't have to trust me if you don't want to, but from what I heard, you are running low on options."

Lovino had to admit the man had a point.

"Okay," he agreed.

With a slight nod, the man stepped back. Assuming he was done, Lovino started walking again.

"Another thing," the man added, his voice only slightly stronger, "Do not tell anyone else about this exchange. If anyone asks, I have never said a word to you. Do you understand?"

Lovino nodded slowly.

They walked the rest of the way through the restaurant in silence. As Lovino stepped out the front door and onto the street, he turned to catch one last glimpse of the mysterious man. They locked eyes for a split second before it was interrupted by a bow.

"Good luck, Vargas-san."

He would never admit it, but the parting words were appreciated. After all, Lovino would need all the luck he could get.


	3. Monte Carlo

With its smooth tan walls, dramatic lighting, and elaborate European-style architecture the Monte Carlo certainly lived up to its Monégasque namesake. If it had been any other time, Lovino might have stopped to admire the extravagant building, but instead he walked straight through the front doors and made a beeline for the information booth off to the side of the lobby.

The only person behind the desk was a nervous-looking young woman with dark skin and thick black hair pulled into two low ponytails. As Lovino approached, he could see her eyes anxiously flicking up and down between him and her hands.

"H-how may I help you?" she stammered.

"I'm looking for an employee named Amy Jones." Lovino figured it best to get straight to the point, thought he wasn't sure how much she could help him.

"Oh...um, I don't...I'm not sure if I can do that, or I mean, I don't know if I can help you with that." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm new, " she explained, as if that would help Lovino in any way.

He continued to stare at her, but said nothing.

She looked down again with a small shake of her head. "Right. Sorry. I'll go...I gotta talk to my superior." Putting her hands up in a gesture that told him to stay there, she backed up. "I'll be right back."

The woman turned and rushed through a door behind the desk. While she was gone, Lovino took in his surroundings. The interior of the Monte Carlo was just as fancy as the exterior, with tall columns and chandeliers framing the open and crowded lobby. From where he stood, Lovino could partially see the casino floor, similarly decorated, but with the added effects of blinking lights and the constant sound of rolling dice and slot machines. Lovino was never much of a gambler, but some of the older family members had been. He remembered being a child and hearing in buzzed Italian that everything in a successful casino, from the distracting decorations to the lack of windows, was designed to make people stay as long as possible.

The young employee returned with an older woman on her heel. The first thing Lovino noticed was her long, elegant evening gown, followed by long blond hair in a silky plait down her shoulder. Though she was petite, she gave off an aura of authority as she gazed at Lovino over the frames of the eyeglasses perched delicately on her nose. She was the type of woman Lovino would have tried to woo in the old days.

"May I have your name?" she asked, her accent sounding somewhat French.

"Lovino Vargas. I'm looking for…"

She cut him off with a prim _ahem._ "I know who you are looking for, Monsieur Vargas. What I want to know is why you think you can walk into my casino, bully my concierge, and assume I would tell you the whereabouts of another employee."

Lovino sputtered in disbelief. "Bully your concierge? I barely said anything to her!"

He glanced in her direction, but the darker-skinned woman refused to look up.

"That's not what she said and excuse me if I choose to take the word of my trusted employee over yours. Now Monsieur Vargas, if you have nothing else to say, I kindly ask you to leave on your own accord, or we will be forced to call security." She turned to leave with a flick of her head.

"Wait!" Lovino called out. In any other circumstance, he would have stormed off at the bizarre accusation, but Amy Jones was the only lead he had if he wanted to find his brother. It was time to turn up the charm. "Please, Signora...what is your name?"

She glared down at him, an impressive feat for someone nearly half a foot shorter. "Madame Monique Bonnefoy."

"Signora Bonnefoy, I deeply apologize for any misunderstanding." He turned to the concierge. "I meant no offence to you. If it was my tone that upset you, I must confess I'm out of sorts at the moment due to personal issues."

"If I may ask, what kind of personal issues, Monsieur Vargas?"

Lovino turned back to Madame Bonnefoy, heart jumping at the second chance. A split second later, however, he hesitated, unsure of how much information he was willing to give this stranger. He didn't exactly want the knowledge of his circumstances shouted to the entire city, but he also didn't know if this woman's cooperation was reliant on him telling her about everything. Not having enough time to fully think the issue through, Lovino settled on polite refusal.

"I would be much more comfortable if that information would remain private. I do want to stress that it is an extremely important matter that requires discussion with Amy Jones. I also want to stress again that the incident involving your concierge was a fluke, and I don't intend to cause any trouble with Miss Jones. So please, Signora, I beg of you, help me."

The two women shared an odd, wide-eyed look with each other. Lovino hoped his copious amounts of ass-kissing meant something, or his teenage self would never forgive him. At last, Madame Bonnefoy nodded her head.

"Very well, Monsieur Vargas, I will tell you where Miss Jones is, though I hope you understand that I intend to keep a eye on you."

Lovino nodded profusely.

"She is manning one of the Blackjack tables on the far right edge of the floor, near the restrooms."

"Thank you so much for your help!" Lovino called over his shoulder, already hurrying towards the casino.

It wasn't until he saw the long line of Blackjack dealers that Lovino realized he had no idea what Amy Jones looked like. He approached the dealer on the end, an Asian man with glasses and a smart black vest over a crisp white shirt and bow tie.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Amy Jones," he said as politely as he could, not wanting to go through the same ordeal as before in case every Monte Carlo employee was as insane as the concierge.

"She's over on there," he answered easily, to Lovino's relief. The dealer pointed over to a women a few tables over. Lovino waved a thanks as he left.

As Lovino walked up to the empty table, he took a long look at its dealer. Amy Jones was rather tall, with wavy, blonde hair that cut off at her shoulders. She wore what Lovino guessed was the female version of the uniform the other dealer wore, which was basically a black corset-looking thing over fishnets with a matching bow tie and collar. She stood with her hip out as she boredly shuffled the cards in front of her.

She smiled as Lovino took a seat in front of her, stopping her shuffling and leaning a bit forward. Lovino noticed her right hand was missing the last two fingers, but it didn't seem to affect her cardwork.

"How's it going?" she asked lightly.

"Fine," Lovino lied, "Are you Amy Jones?"

She cocked her head curiously. "Yes?"

"Your real name is Amelia Williams."

She gasped and turned her head from side to side before leaning in even closer to glare at Lovino. Her eyes were somewhere between a cool gray and a steely blue. "Who sent you? Was it Ivan?"

"No, no! I don't know his name. It was some Chinese guy."

"What?"

Lovino struggled to remember the phrase that, in hindsight, he should have written down. "He said...uh...we were the best in the state, but we should have been the best in the nation."

Her harsh demeanor dissipated within seconds. "Oh, Kiku sent you." She chuckled. "He's Japanese, man."

Lovino shrugged.

"Why, though?"

"Huh?"

"Why did he send you?"

"He said you could help me."

"Help you?"

"You said something about Ivan earlier. Ivan Braginsky?"

"You're having trouble with Ivan Braginsky?" She let out a bitter laugh. "Join the club, man."

Lovino gritted his teeth. "Look, I'm not even sure if it was Braginsky, I was just told to come talk to you."

"If what was Braginsky?"

"Someone killed my grandfather a few hours ago, and I'm pretty sure it was him."

Amelia widened her eyes at that before letting out a sad sigh. "Look dude, that sucks, but I'm not sure if I can do anything for you."

Lovino grunted out a series of swear words as he banged his fist on the Blackjack table. Amelia coughed awkwardly.

"Hey man, if you're not going to play, could you open the table up to some other customers?"

Lovino glared up at her.

"I don't mean to be a dick about it, it's just the owner will kill me if she sees me just talking. Gotta make that money, you know?"

"You know," Lovino spat as he stood up from the table, "For someone who loves money so much, your boss sure is quick to throw out paying customers."

Amelia laughed again. Her laugh was really getting on Lovino's nerves. "Are you kidding me? Monique Bonnefoy wouldn't pass up a chance to make a buck if it killed her! Well, maybe not her, but one of us for sure."

Lovino stared at her in disbelief. "She just threatened to call security on me because the new girl at the information desk said I was bullying her!"

"New girl at the… you mean Michelle? She's not new, she's been here longer than..." Amelia glanced over at the lobby, and the confused expression on her face blinked to one of shock. "Oh, fuck me running."

"What?"

Before Lovino could turn around to look, he was yanked forward by Amelia's hand around his wrist.

"We gotta get out of here right now!" She pulled again on his arm, but Lovino didn't budge.

"What? Why?" He turned around try and see what happened, hard to do through the crowd of people.

Likely deducing that Lovino wasn't going to follow her without reason, Amelia pointed towards the lobby.

"You see those two people talking to Monique up there?"

With her guidance, he did. There were indeed two figures facing away from the casino floor, one a very pale white-haired man, the other a brunette woman.

"They work for Ivan Braginsky."

Lovino's eyes widened at that as he let himself get dragged away from the table. Amelia led him to a door tucked away next to the restrooms, a sign indicating it was for employees only. As it turned out, it opened into an empty break room. Amelia dropped Lovino's hand and rushed to a row of lockers on one wall.

"What are you doing?" Lovino asked as he watched her twist the combination lock on one of the small doors.

"I told you, dude, we gotta get out of here." She flung open the locker. "Those two, their names are Gilbert and Elizabeta. They work for Ivan, and if they get a hold of you it sure as shit won't be pretty."

She pulled out a pair of hot pants and kicked off her pumps before slipping them on.

"Why are _you_ going?"

Amelia finished buttoning her shorts and began stuffing her feet into a pair of leather boots before sighing. "Long story short, they think I'm dead, and the last thing I need is for them to find out I'm not, which is exactly what'll happen if Monique tells them you were asking for me."

Lovino pushed down the bit of guilt he had for involving her in this. "So, you're just going to leave? What about your job?"

"There are worse things than getting fired." Amelia smiled as she shrugged on a battered, brown bomber jacket. "Now take this and follow me." She shoved a motorcycle helmet in Lovino's arms and marched back out the door.

"Where are you going?" Lovino asked as he trailed behind her. Amelia walked swiftly along the back wall of the casino floor, her jacket pulled up to partially obscure her face. She didn't acknowledge his question.

"Hey, where are you going?" Lovino repeated, a little louder.

They reached another door, this one with a red exit sign hanging over it. Amelia pushed it open and they walked out into a parking lot behind the building.

"To my bike," she finally answered, peering over her shoulder to look at him, "Put the helmet on."

"What?" Lovino sputtered, "Why me?"

"Because you're the one they're on the lookout for and it makes more sense for your head to be covered." She hurried across the pavement towards a blue and red motorcycle parked a few rows back.

"Do you have another one?"

Amelia shot him a look that made Lovino feel stupid for asking. "Why the fuck would I carry around two helmets with me?"

When Lovino didn't answer Amelia rolled her eyes and swung her leg over the seat of the bike. Turning to look a him, she pat the seat behind her. "Hop on."

Lovino hesitated. "I've never been on a motorcycle before," he admitted.

"That's why you're in the bitch seat," she replied with a grin, "Now come on before I decide to leave you. And put on the damn helmet."

Feeling somewhat emasculated, Lovino shoved the helmet on his head and climbed onto the bike. Following her instructions, he placed his arms rather awkwardly around her middle. The bike let out a deafening roar as Amelia revved the engine.

"One last thing!" she shouted over the noise, "What's your name?"

"Lovino!" he answered, only now realizing he didn't tell her before.

"Lovino, huh?" Amelia turned forward and lowered her head slightly. "Nice to meet ya."

Lovino squeezed her as he tried not to yell out at the sudden jerk of motion.

"Hold on!" she yelled as the two of them drove off into the night.


	4. Businesses Big and Small

_**5 years earlier**_

A tiny bell rang as Lovino pushed open the door to the quaint little market. The limited space was lined with several aisles filled with assorted food items, many from Europe and the Middle East. The back wall contained a small enclave underneath a large sign advertising the halal meats that were laid out in a cooled glass display below. Behind the meat counter stood a man, tall and scruffy with tan skin. He looked up at the sound of the bell and flashed the two entering men a fake smile.

"Lovino, Antonio," he called out with shaky friendliness, "What can I get for you? I just got a new supply of lamb, fresh as can be! I can give you a special discount…"

While Antonio took to browsing through the aisles, Lovino marched straight to the back, his glare permeating through the man. "Cut the shit, Sadiq," he growled, "Where the fuck is our money?"

Sadiq held his hands up. "I promise I'll have it soon, I just need a few more days."

Lovino slammed his hand on the counter. "You don't get to decide when you get to pay us! The deal is every month, on the seventh! What day is it, Antonio?"

"The tenth," he answered from across the store.

"It's the tenth, Sadiq, and you still haven't paid us."

"Lovino, please, the freezer in the back went out and I had to get it repaired. That's why I'm late. I'm not trying to get out of anything, I'm just short right now. Just tell your grandfather to give me a little more time."

Lovino slammed his hands down again. "I don't answer to my grandfather! If I say you pay me on the seventh, you pay me on the seventh! Not the eighth, not the ninth, AND NOT THE FUCKING TENTH!"

Sadiq was staring at him wide-eyed, not daring to move a muscle as Lovino shouted up at him. Antonio continued to walk up and down the store, completely disinterested in what was going on.

"Did you think you could get out of paying me? Just blow me off like I don't fucking matter?"

"No, I…"

"WE MADE A DEAL, SADIQ! We told you we'd protect this shitty little shop as long as you kept up the payments."

"I know, I just…"

"If you've gone and decided you're not going to pay us anymore, then we don't need to keep up our end of the deal."

Sadiq clasped his hands together and shook his head rapidly. "Please, Lovino, don't do it. I can have the money by tomorrow. By tonight even!"

'I know you're going to have the money, but this is for thinking you can get away with ignoring the terms of our agreement." Keeping his eyes fixed to the shopkeeper, Lovino called out the name of his bodyguard.

Without hesitation, Antonio lifted up his leg and kicked down the row of shelves in front of him. The deafening crash drowned out the sound of Sadiq's shout. Lovino scowled as another shelf was knocked over, then another. Sadiq ran out from behind the meat counter, clearly caught between trying to stop Antonio and trying to protect his store, but either way, he was too late. After just a few moments of cacophony, the shop was silent besides its owner's angry string of Turkish swear words.

Lovino began walking towards the door, careful to avoid the broken glass and garbage that now littered the floor. Antonio made a move to join him, stepping around the crouched shape of Sadiq attempting to pick up the mess. Lovino grabbed the handle of the door and pulled, the little bell ringing out once more, then stopped when he heard Sadiq's heated voice.

"You're a fucking coward," he yelled.

Lovino let go of the door handle, letting it close again. "What did you say to me?"

"You heard me! You're a fucking coward! All of you mob guys are! You go and get together and pick on everyone you wouldn't dare try to take on one on one." Sadiq was still crouching, his body perpendicular to the door, and his arms full of food that hadn't been ruined. He glanced up to shoot Lovino a glare. "Fuck you! Fuck all of you!" He held up his hand to flip them off before looking back down to the floor.

Lovino felt his face heat up as he stood there gritting his teeth. Something inside him snapped. He bent down to grab an unbroken glass bottle from the ground. He didn't know what the bottle contained, just that it felt heavy as his hand slid comfortably around its neck. Time seemed to slow down as he rushed forward, his shoes crunching down on littered packages. Sadiq had barely turned his head before Lovino had smashed the bottle over the back of it.

Lovino couldn't hear himself tell Antonio to hold Sadiq down. He couldn't see. He couldn't think. It was like he was on autopilot. Through his own eyes, he watched himself march behind the meat counter and grab a butcher knife. It was huge and shiny and Lovino could see his furious eyes reflected on the side, but he didn't recognize himself. He approached the other two men, one laying face-down on the filthy floor and the other on top of him, his knee digging into his back and hands gripping his wrists.

"Give me his hand," ordered Lovino. Antonio looked at him with confusion, but complied, pulling out Sadiq's right arm. Sadiq begged them to stop, his face smashed against the linoleum. His cries turned to anguished wails as Lovino lined the knife up to his middle finger.

Lovino saw the shiny metal pressed against flesh, and somewhere inside of him, a tiny voice protested what he was about to do.

With one swift movement, Lovino chopped off the finger.

It made a horrible crunch that cut through the air and snapped Lovino out of his blinding rage. He threw down the knife as if it were burning him and backed away from the screaming man in a poorly masked panic.

"Come on," he said to Antonio, trying to keep his voice from wavering, "Let's get out of here."

From then on, no matter how hard he tried to forget it, Lovino would never be able to get that sound out of his head.

For the entirety of the ride from the casino, Lovino had his face buried into the fuzzy collar of Amelia's bomber jacket. When she assured him that they had reached their destination, he looked up and groaned at the the irritating yellow arches that stood proudly over the building.

"Why did you take me to McDonald's?"

Amelia shrugged. "I'm hungry. Plus, we needed somewhere private to talk."

Lovino eyed the crowded dining area as they pushed open the front doors. "You call _this_ private?"

"It's a _chain_ , Lovino." She stopped mid-eyeroll to glance at him with curiosity. "Do you go by Lovino, or do you have a nickname, like Vin or something?"

"Lovino," he grunted.

"Oh, cool. Me too. I mean, I don't go by Lovino, I go by Amelia, unless I'm in hiding." She laughed. "Anyway, as I was saying, chains are the safest place you can go if you want privacy." She gestured towards the tired cashier. "Take her, for example. She's probably been working for hours now, constantly serving a never ending stream of customers. Yet, if you went up and asked her to identify any of them, she wouldn't be able to do it, because she's served hundreds of people today alone." She turned to wave her hand at the dining area. "Meanwhile, not a single person in here is on the lookout for former mafia members, because this place answers to their corporate office, not any of the crime syndicates. Plus, no one gives a shit about what the guy sitting in the next table over at McDonald's is talking about. It's all about hiding in plain sight."

Lovino had a feeling she had a lot of time to think about this.

"Couldn't you have picked somewhere with halfway decent food at least?"

"Hey, the food here is...okay."

Lovino raised his eyebrows.

"I mean, it's not the best, but that's not really the point, is it?" Amelia huffed. "What gives you the right to be all judgy anyway? Are you some sort of fast food expert?"

"I have a bachelor's degree in restaurant management that I used to get a job managing a successful Italian restaurant."

"Oh what, like a Pizza Hut?"

Lovino's attempts to remain impassive at the teasing remark must have failed, as Amelia let out a barking laugh.

"Oh my god, really? I was totally joking!"

"No, not really!"

"It's okay! There's no shame in it, Pizza Hut is good. I used to order from them all the time."

To Lovino's relief the subject was dropped when the reached to front of the line. Despite the less than savory menu items, Lovino couldn't ignore the fact that he hadn't eaten since early that morning, so he took up Amelia's offer for a hamburger. He felt a little embarrassed at the prospect of letting a lady pay for his meal, but it wasn't a date and he really needed to save the small amount of cash he had.

Food in hand, they sat across from each other at an empty booth. As Amelia picked up an exceptionally long fry with her three remaining fingers, Lovino tried not to stare at the scarred lumps on her hand where the other two ought to be.

"So," Amelia began, her mouth half full, "You got a last name, Lovino, or are you going for like a Liberace thing?"

"Vargas," he answered curtly, "Lovino Vargas."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Vargas as in the mob boss?"

"He's my grandfather."

"The murdered grandfather?"

Lovino nodded.

Amelia sat back in her chair and ran her hand through her hair. "Oh, jeez, that's...I thought you were just...well that explains a little."

"What does it explain?"

"Well, I'm sure you're aware of how these 'gang war' things function, right?"

"I mean, in an objective sense...look, I've been out of the loop for a while now, so I don't have much of an idea of who's fighting who and why."

"That makes two of us. Which is why I told you I can't really help."

Lovino felt like all the air had been let out of him, but a wave of desperation perked him up again.

"What about those two people you knew from the casino? You said they worked for Ivan Braginsky?"

"They do. Or at least they did when I worked for him."

" _You_ worked for him?"

"Yeah, but that was a while ago."

"How long is a while?"

"About two and a half years. I don't even know if they're still doing it."

"Then what was all that 'we gotta get out of here' crap?"

Amelia's face darkened considerably. "Look, man, I don't know about you, but I know _exactly_ what happens to people that piss Ivan off, so there's no way in hell I'm taking any chances. If he's is the one who killed your grandfather, I'd say it would be a pretty big coincidence for Gilbert and Elizabeta to be poking around places you've been seen if they aren't connected."

"I don't even know if it was him!"

"Then what is this all based on? What even happened?"

Lovino took a deep breath and started from the beginning. "I live out of town, and I have for a while, but I came to visit last night. Today, my grandfather was speaking at some Italian pride rally, and he was shot in the head. I didn't see who did it. A bunch of other mob guys were shot too, one after the other. I got out of there and tried to go home, but it was being watched, so I went to Wang Yao because I heard he was on good terms with my grandfather. He told me Ivan Braginsky was probably who did it because they've been fighting or something. Then your friend told me to come find you, and that's it." He let out a tired sigh. "I just...I don't want to be a part of all this. I'm just trying to find my brother."

"Your brother?" Amelia echoed softly.

"Yeah, Feliciano. He's the whole reason I came here. I didn't see him at the rally and I was afraid he was killed, but Wang said he wasn't one of the dead bodies, so he either escaped or…" Lovino paused to force down the lump in his throat. "I'm not looking for retaliation or anything. I really don't give a shit who killed my grandfather, he probably deserved it. I just need to make sure my little brother's safe."

"Okay, I'll help."

"What?"

"I said I'll help you. Find your brother, I mean. In any way I can."

"Really? But you said you couldn't do anything."

Amelia scoffed in mild offence. "Well maybe I can't do a lot, but I'd like to think I'm better than nothing."

"That's not what I mean...Look, you have to realize I'm feeling pretty fucking stuck right now. I have no idea where he could be. I haven't lived here in years."

"Well, where did he used to hang out when you did live here?"

"I left when he was fifteen. He pretty much split his time between the high school art room and the front steps of our house."

Amelia hummed. "Well, let's try to think this through. Best case scenario, he found a safe house to lay low in."

"Worst case scenario, he's dead in a fucking ditch somewhere."

"No, worst case scenario, Ivan kidnapped him."

"How is this helping us?"

"Listen, if he's hiding out, then you don't have to worry, it's just a matter of finding out where he could be."

"How am I supposed to do that when everyone I know in this fucking city is missing or dead."

"I don't know yet, but at least he'll be safe in the meantime. I'm sure he'd try to contact you, right?"

Lovino knew he would, if he was in any position to. "So what are you saying? You expect me to just sit around waiting for Feliciano to call?"

"No, because there's a chance that he's not hiding out. But the problem is, we don't know for sure who's targeting your family."

"I thought we established it was Braginsky, with what Wang said and the whole thing at the casino?"

"No offense, but your grandfather was a crime boss. I can't help but think he might have made more than one enemy."

Lovino conceded with a shrug.

"Plus, I told you, I don't know if Gilbert and Elizabeta still work for Ivan. Look, I'm not saying it's not a possibility, I just think we should get a little more information before barging into Ivan's house and demanding he hand over your brother."

"What more information do we need?"

"We could start by figuring out who killed your grandfather to begin with. After that, we can go from there."

It sounded like as good a plan as any if not for the fact that Lovino had no idea how he was going to do that.

"Who do I look like, Sherlock fucking Holmes?"

Amelia chuckled. "Dude, you don't have to _be_ a detective, you just have to _know_ a detective."

"Yeah? Well I don't happen to know any detectives."

"Well, luckily for us, _I_ do."


	5. Past Mistakes and Future Deeds

Lovino stood anxiously next to the payphone, his eyes shifting between his surroundings and Amelia, who was leaning down near the mechanism with the handset cradled near her face. She was on the line with one of the precinct offices in the city.

"Yes," she said, her voice uncharacteristically formal, "I'm calling to check if Detective Vash Zwingli is currently working. This is his girlfriend speaking."

She glanced at Lovino as the person on the phone answered, conspiratorially wiggling her eyebrows.

"He's not? Hmm, I see. Could you give me a moment, please?" Amelia pulled the phone slightly away from her face, far enough to make it clear that she wasn't talking to whomever was on the line, but close enough to ensure that they would hear what she said next.

"I _knew_ he was lying to me," Amelia hissed, her suddenly furious tone catching Lovino off-guard, "That cheating little bastard!"

She placed the phone back, grinning wildly at the loud guffaws coming from the receiver.

"Would you be so kind as to inform me of when he is working next? I have some things I need to discuss with him." She nodded at what they said next. "Uh-huh. Okay, thank you so much for your help!"

Hanging up the phone, Amelia chuckled at the conversation. Despite himself, Lovino couldn't help but smile too.

"He's going in tomorrow at eight. I think it's best if we try to catch him as early as possible so he can't find an excuse to weasel out of talking to me."

"How can you be sure he'll even help us? It doesn't sound like you two are on good terms."

"Unless he's had some epiphany while I was gone, Vash doesn't care about personal relations. He'll tell me anything if I pay him enough."

"It's nice to see our city's finest are so dedicated to protecting us."

Amelia snorted at that before glancing up at the dark sky. "It's getting kinda late. We should probably turn in if we're going to get up so early. You said your house was being watched, right? Do you have anywhere else to go?"

Lovino let out something between a sigh and a growl. "Fuck, I forgot about that. I was planning on trying to find a cheap hotel somewhere."

"There's not a lot of cheap hotels this deep in the city." Amelia replied, "How much cash do you have?"

Lovino pulled out his wallet and checked. "Not a lot."

Amelia's face scrunched up in thought for a moment. "Listen, I have plenty of room in my apartment, if you want to stay for the night."

Lovino was really resenting his recent descent into helplessness. Relying on the kindness of strangers was never a position he liked finding himself in. What he was focused on at the moment, however, was Amelia's curious dedication to helping him, especially with her earlier demeanor suggesting normal distrust. Still, it was either her place or the streets, and Lovino could guess which option was safer.

"Alright. If it's no big deal."

Amelia parked her motorcycle in an ally next to her apartment building. It was no palace, but Lovino had definitely seen worse. The lobby was painted a bland beige that clashed with the furniture. An unoccupied front desk faced the elevators on the opposite wall.

"No doorman?" Lovino mused.

"Yeah, no one's ever there. I honestly think they were just too cheap to hire one. Works for me though. The less people that know my routine, the better, you know?"

They took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked down a long hallway. When they stopped at the door labeled 5-O, Amelia pulled out her keys and placed her hand gently on Lovino's chest.

"You might want to stand back for this."

Lovino watched curiously as she unlocked the door and pushed it slightly open leaving just enough room to slide her arm in. She rummaged around a bit, her face featuring an expression of intense concentration as she quietly counted to herself. After reaching five, she smiled and pulled her arm back out.

"Come on in," she said, pushing the door open the rest of the way and waving.

Lovino stepped into the apartment and yelped when he came face to face with the tip of a crossbow bolt. He felt Amelia grip his shoulder and pull him out of the way. Looking wildly around, Lovino realized that there were an additional four loaded crossbows aimed directly towards him.

"Don't worry," Amelia reassured unreassuringly, "They're not going to go off. I disassembled the trigger."

A moment of closer inspection revealed that the crossbows were actually part of a system of wires hooked up to the front door in a sort of deadly Rube Goldberg machine.

"What the..how the… why the…" Lovino couldn't find the words to speak.

"Yeah, this is why I don't order pizza anymore."

"This is insane!"

"Thanks, I built it myself!"

"WHY?"

"I feel like we've been over this a few times now. If Ivan finds out I'm alive, he'll try to find me, so I need some sort of protection. Speaking of which, stay right there." Amelia closed the door of the apartment and immediately set up the trap again. Lovino stared at her, a mixture of different emotions flowing through him at warp speed.

When she was done, Amelia brushed her hands off on her shorts and walked past an open-mouthed Lovino. "Now then, I'd give you a tour, but this is basically it." She gestured vaguely around.

The apartment wasn't messy so much as cluttered. The living room contained a couch slightly too large for the amount of space there was, made to look even more cramped by a massive old bookcase shoved against the wall. The kitchen was combined with a small dining area with a tiny table and two chairs. Every surface was covered in an assortment of comic books, machine parts, and handwritten notes.

"The bedroom is around here," she called, turning a corner, "And the bathroom's right there."

It was as if there was invisible line cutting the room in half. One side was much like the rest of the apartment, with superhero posters hung up over a small twin bed with messy blue sheets. The other side had a similarly sized bed, but with neat red sheets and and a distinct lack of junk.

"You can use my brother's bed," Amelia said, pointing to the neat side of the room.

"He won't mind?" Lovino asked, too distracted to focus on being flippant.

A mixture of surprise and some other, sadder emotion passed across her face. "No. He's...he's not here...anymore."

"Oh," he replied softly, "I'm so sorry." He wasn't sure what he felt sorry for, but it felt appropriate to say it anyway.

"It's fine, you didn't know." She flashed a hurt smile.

They stood in silence for a moment.

"You can take a shower if you want. No offense, but I bet you need one."

"Yeah, thanks."

Gripping the towel Amelia gave him from her hall closet, Lovino shut the door to the tiny bathroom. He looked into the mirror. His reflection hadn't changed much from earlier in the public restroom, but something about him was marginally healthier. Maybe it was hope. Lovino pondered for only a moment before looking away and stripping off his sweaty clothing.

After the initial confusion that always comes with trying to figure out an unfamiliar shower, Lovino relished in the unspeakable comfort of the hot water running down his body. He thought about whether he ought to let himself cry. Growing up, his grandfather used to tell him that real men never cried. Lovino had believed him wholeheartedly at one point. After leaving, he tried to break some of his old habits out of spite, but that was easier said than done. In the end, he let the tears flow freely down his face as his body was wracked with quiet sobs. The only bad part was the ounce of shame that sat stubbornly within him.

By the time he was done, Amelia had already changed into a set of babydoll pajamas and fluffy slippers. She stood from her position on her bed and handed Lovino a bundle of clothing.

"They belonged to my brother, so they'll be a bit big on you, but they should work."

Lovino thanked her and she smiled before going into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed.

The red flannel pajamas were indeed much too big for Lovino, a problem quickly fixed by tightening the waist drawstring and rolling up the sleeves and pant legs. Amelia was still gone, so Lovino took the chance to look around the dimly lit bedroom. A shiny gold trophy placed upon a small table next to Amelia's bed caught his eye. The plate on its base revealed it awarded to the first place winner of some state physics bowl competition.

Slightly behind the trophy was a small framed photograph. Lovino picked it up for a closer look. The photo was of three figures huddled together in a friendly pose. A much younger version of Amelia stood in the middle, beaming proudly and holding the same trophy up with her right hand. Lovino noted that all of her fingers were intact. Her other arm was slung around the shoulders of a small boy with black hair and a sheepish smile. It took Lovino a second to realize that it was the man Amelia called Kiku, the one who sent him here in the first place. The third figure was another boy with his arm around Amelia. He was tall and gangly with wavy blond hair and round glasses perched on a pointy nose. Lovino guessed he was Amelia's brother.

"We were the best in the state, but we should have been the best in the nation."

Lovino jumped at the sudden noise. Amelia smirked at him from the doorway of the bathroom.

"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't...I'm not scared," Lovino replied defensively, quickly putting the picture frame back down. Ho coughed into his fist, mostly in an effort to hide his reddening face. "What were you saying?"

Amelia stepped past him and picked up the picture herself before sitting down on the bed. "We were the best in the state, but we should have been the best in the nation. That's what Kiku told you to tell me, right. This is what that's about. In high school, we were on our school's physics bowl team together. We were really good, too. I got first place in state, but I didn't make the international team by _this_ much." She held up her hand with her thumb and index finger almost touching. "I was so upset. The IPhO was held in Budapest that year, so Kiku and Matt were trying to cheer me up like 'You wouldn't even like Hungary. It's communist and blah blah blah.' I guess that was pretty sweet of them, but it still would have been cool to go to Europe."

"There are a lot nicer places in Europe than Hungary, I can tell you that."

"Like Italy?"

Lovino smiled as he crossed the room to sit on the other bed. "Italy is the most beautiful country I've ever been."

"Are you just saying that because you were raised there?"

"How do you know I was raised in Italy?"

"You have an Italian accent. Plus you kinda just confirmed it."

Lovino looked at her with narrowed eyes, slightly annoyed at having been figured out so easily. "I was born there. I moved to America when I was eleven."

"Why?"

Lovino was taken aback by her direct question, but decided there was no harm in divulging that information, especially considering she had done nothing but help him out so far. "My parents died, so my brother and I came to live with my grandfather."

When it happened, the brothers were told they were killed in a car accident. Lovino later learned that they were murdered by a rival gang.

"Oh, that sucks," Amelia replied, her tone relaying a bit of sympathy, but not the awkwardly heavy amount of pity that normally accompanied people's reactions. Lovino thought it was a nice change of pace.

"Matt and I were orphans too. Matt's my brother by the way, did I mention that? I don't know what happened to our parents though. The foster care system here sucks at relaying information." She laughed. "We used to tell the other kids they found us as babies in a dumpster behind a Wendy's. Well, I said Wendy's. Matt said it was a Tim Horton's."

Lovino was starting to get used to Amelia's weird tendency to go on tangents and laugh off things that really shouldn't be laughed off.

"We bounced around a lot to different foster families. If it had been only one of us, we probably would have been adopted, but not a lot of people wanted two babies at the same time, and the older we got the harder it was to find a family, especially since we wouldn't let them separate us. Eventually we just aged out of the system."

Lovino didn't really know how to respond to her willingness to be so open with him, so he turned to his default method of defensiveness.

"I'm sure you think I'm lucky for having family to rely on, huh?" Growing up, that's what they'd always told him.

Amelia shot him a funny look. "Maybe ordinarily, but I got the impression you weren't on good terms with your grandfather."

"Yeah, that's a good assessment."

"What was he like? Were any of those rumors true?"

Lovino raised his eyebrows a bit. He had never gotten an outsider's perspective on the family. "I don't know. What kind of rumors are we talking about."

"They used to say your grandfather was really two-faced, you know? Like, one minute he'd be super charming and the next he'd be stabbing you in the back."

Lovino let out a bitter laugh. "That seems about right. Who told you that anyway? Is is common knowledge, or did he piss someone off?"

"Hard to say, I got it from a pretty biased source."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Ivan told me a long time ago that General Winter hated him."

"General Winter?"

"That's what they called the guy in charge of the Russians before Ivan. He was the boss when Matt and I came along, but he was pretty elusive, so I never met him personally. I don't even know his real name."

"So, how did two orphans get involved in the Russian mafia?" Lovino might not have asked otherwise, but Amelia didn't seem to mind the questions and he was genuinely interested.

She chuckled. "In a pretty roundabout way, actually. In high school, Matt and I were staying in this foster home with this single guy. He was pretty young, more of a big brother figure than a dad, really. He was nice at first, but then he kinda got wrapped up in himself. Like, he wasn't abusive or anything, he just kinda ignored us. I mean, we were old enough to take care of ourselves, so it wasn't really that big a deal, but it left us without a lot of supervision. So, I told you I was on the same physics bowl team as Kiku. We were, like, best friends, and by that point, he was already working with Yao, who was working with the Russians."

"Wang Yao was working with the Russians?"

"Not like, super closely, and the alliance fell apart not too long after Matt and I were introduced. Kiku is the only one I talk to from that crowd. But anyway, we started doing some low level grunt work for the Russians," She nodded towards the living room. "As you can see, I got pretty good at building weapons. Matt turned out to be a great salesman. He was really nice, you know, the kind of guy you trusted to sell you really good cocaine."

She laughed at that, and Lovino laughed too, even though he wouldn't have been able to say what was funny. They sat there for a minute, just looking at each other from across the room and laughing at nothing. Eventually, silence fell over them and they both looked down.

"Hey," Lovino finally said, his voice wavering slightly, "Can I ask you another question?"

"Sure," Amelia responded without hesitation.

Lovino thought about simply saying nevermind, and leaving it at that, but if he didn't know, it might kill him.

"What happened to your fingers?"

Amelia held her hand up to her face and frowned at the scars as if she were trying to solve a very hard puzzle. Then she lifted up her left foot and pulled off its slipper revealing three missing small toes. "It's not what you think," she answered, her voice marginally flatter than before. "I take that back, actually. I don't know what you think. I lost them to frostbite."

"Frostbite?" He wasn't thinking that at all.

"Yeah, amputation. The digits were dead and they couldn't risk infection so…" Amelia ended the sentence by movin her other hand down in a chopping motion. Lovino felt sick to his stomach.

"Oh. How did you get frostbite?"

"Remember when I told you I know exactly what happens to people that piss Ivan off?" She held up her hand again.

"Holy shit! What did you do?"

"Matt and I strayed a little too far from his clutches, so to speak. He was in charge by then, and really paranoid about people leaving him. He found out we'd been talking with this third party dealer and came down hard." She sighed heavily and laid with her back down on the bed. "You know the thing with having people you care about is that they know who to target when they really want you to hurt. A few fingers are nothing, _nothing_ , compared to my brother. I'd give up my whole arm to bring him back. Hell, I'd give up a lot more just for a chance to get back at Ivan for what he did to us."

Without another word, Amelia set the picture frame back down on the end table and flicked off the lamp placed next to it. The room was enveloped in darkness broken only by the city lights shining through the window.

"We should get to sleep," Amelia called out heavily, "Goodnight, Lovino."

"Goodnight," he echoed.

As Lovino settled beneath the crisp red covers, he thought about everything Amelia had said. Before her abrupt end to the conversation, he had been planning on asking why she decided to help him. It was just as well, though, because Lovino could guess what her answer would be.


	6. Long Shots

The next morning, Lovino was woken up by the irritating beeps of an electric clock. He laid in bed for a minute, shaking off the confusion that came with waking up in an unfamiliar place mixed with the jumbled but quickly dissipating memories of the dream he'd been having. In the corner of his eye he could see Amelia's arm sliding out from beneath her covers to turn off the alarm. She too took a moment to wake up before abruptly jumping out of bed.

"Morning, sunshine, it's time to get moving!"

Lovino frowned at her baffling energy, but sat up anyway and rubbed his eyes. Amelia opened the small closet and began riffling through the hanging outfits.

"I wasn't sure if you still wanted to borrow any clothes. You can if you want, but Matt was a pretty big guy and you're...not. No offense."

Lovino half shrugged. He hadn't thought about what he would do for clothes. His pants were in pretty good shape, albeit a tad wrinkly, but his undershirt was covered in sweat stains that were frankly gross.

"You could maybe wear some of my clothes. I'm a lot taller, but my shirts should fit okay. I have some button-ups that are pretty plain, so you won't stand out a bunch."

Lovino ended up wearing his own pants with a pale blue button-up shirt that only looked slightly baggy on his thin frame. It wasn't overly feminine, but Lovino still hoped nobody would notice it was meant for a woman. Amelia wore an outfit similar to the one she had on yesterday, but with her revealing casino uniform replaced by a sensible white blouse.

Within twenty minutes they were out the door and in the alley containing Amelia's motorcycle. Lovino was somewhat relieved to see that she had an extra helmet in her apartment. For reasons he couldn't quite articulate, Lovino felt better knowing that he wasn't the only one who was protected.

Despite the helmet, Lovino still had to stop himself from screaming at every bump they hit. When they finally slowed down to a stop, Lovino wondered if he was ever going to get used to the feeling on the motorcycle or if he would forever spend every trip with Amelia clutched in a death grip. He then reminded himself that this was a temporary thing and pushed down a small note of disappointment at the thought.

The police station parking lot was nearly empty, which struck Lovino as weird, but he didn't know enough about law enforcement to know if this was normal. The duo entered the front door and were immediately greeted by a suited woman with short brown hair half pulled up in a braid. She sat at a desk near the front of the office. The only other person in the room was a tall lighter haired man standing near a water cooler off to the left.

"How can we help you?" the female detective asked.

"I'm looking for Detective Zwingli," Amelia answered, "I was told he'd be here today."

The two detective glanced at each other and tried to stifle their giggles.

"You're the girlfriend right?" the male detective snickered, "I'm sure Vash would love to talk with you. He's in the back, just give me a second." He threw away the paper cup in his hand and stuck his head through a back door.

"Hey, Zwingli!" they heard him call, "Your girlfriend's here!"

"Girlfriend? What are you…" a stocky man with shaggy blond hair walked into the office, the look of confusion on his face turning to shock when he caught a glimpse of Amelia.

"What the f…" His swear was cut short by the other detectives losing their composure and erupting into laughs.

"Hey Vash," Amelia greeted with a devious grin, "Can we talk? Privately?"

Still wide-eyed, he gestured towards another door along the back wall of the office. It led to a small room adjacent to the interrogation cell, a huge two-way mirror connecting them. Closing the door behind them, Vash turned to Amelia and opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, not making a sound.

Amelia finally broke the silence. "You know, if you weren't such an asshole, your coworkers might be less willing to rat you out to your 'girlfriend'."

"They said you were dead," he finally choked out.

"Yeah, and if anyone asks, it'd be great if you said I was dead too."

To Lovino's surprise, it only seemed to take a moment for Vash to accept this. The detective folded his arms against his chest and narrowed his eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

Amelia placed her hand on Lovino's shoulder. "My friend and I are looking for a bit of information that I'm sure you could help us with. I'm sure you've heard of the terrible tragedy that befell the Vargas family yesterday?"

Vash raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"Well," she continued, "We're looking to find out what exactly happened, and I just know you'd be delighted to give us a hand. What do you say?"

"You expect me to tell you what I know for free?"

Amelia chuckled. "Of course not!" She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the keys to her motorcycle. "Unfortunately, I'm low on cash right now, so this will have to do. My bike's in the parking lot if you want to take a look first. It's in great condition all around, any shop in the city would pay hand over fist for it."

Vash stared skeptically at her outstretched hand, but took the keys after only a moment of hesitation.

"Stay right here," he grunted, "I'm going to take a look."

As soon as he was gone, Lovino turned to Amelia. "You gave him the _keys to your motorcycle_?"

She laughed. "Don't worry about that. I'll get it back. Eventually. Or I'll make another one. Either way, it's no big deal."

Lovino couldn't help but disagree, but he had a feeling that any attempts to argue would be shut down. At this point, he felt a bit guilty about Amelia's over-the-top willingness to go out of her way to help him, but he combatted it by reminding himself that she was doing everything by her own choice, a decision that Lovino strongly suspected had to do with whatever history she shared with Ivan. Really, all he could do was be thankful that she was on his side.

Vash returned quickly enough and immediately agreed to the deal. "The bad news is," he said, "I'm not the detective in charge of investigating those murders. The good news is, the one who is is a colleague I used to mentor, so I may have some leeway on accessing information."

"That's fine," Amelia replied impatiently, "All I need is info on the crime scene. Pictures, measurements, all that. Can you get that?"

Vash said nothing, but stood up and left the room once more.

"That's all you need?" Lovino repeated indignantly, "How do you expect to find a murderer with pictures?"

" _Trust me_ ," she hissed with a smile.

Vash entered again and sat down. "She's making a copy of the case file right now."

"Did you tell her what it was for?" Lovino asked, the first words he'd spoken to the detective.

Vash looked at him with surprise, as if he hadn't noticed Lovino was there before. "She didn't ask," he answered matter-of-factly, "Detective Vogel is as efficient as they come, and she knows better than to question a superior officer."

"I thought you said she was a _former_ subordinate?"

Vash waved his hand in the air. "Technically, but the sentiment sticks. In our line of work, you develop respect for each other. I wouldn't expect a couple of _criminals_ to understand."

The thought of a dirty cop lecturing him about respect sent a flame of rage roaring throughout Lovino. Unthinkingly, he balled his fists and clenched his jaw, getting ready to do something he would certainly regret later. Suddenly, however, he was pulled out of his fury by a cool feeling around his forearm. He looked down to see a three fingered hand gently gripping him, his eyes then moving up to meet Amelia's. She peered at him with an expression he could not identify, though Lovino was relieved to note that it was neither fear nor patronization. He let out the air in his lungs and let his hands fall loosely to his side.

After a few minutes of tense silence, the door to the room was opened and a short young woman with a blonde bob walked in. She handed Vash a stuffed manila folder. "Is there anything else you need, Detective?" she asked in a soft but clipped tone.

"No, thank you, Lily," he answered, "That's all."

Her blank expression unchanging, she nodded curtly and swiftly exited.

Vash smirked at Lovino as he gave Amelia the file. Lovino narrowed his eyes but said nothing as Amelia flipped through the papers.

"This looks great!" she said cheerily, "Thanks, Vash."

"That's usually not what people say when I hand them a pile of crime scene photos, but you're welcome. It's been great doing business with you again."

Lovino wished he could punch the smug grin off his face.

Exiting the police station, Amelia took one last look at her motorcycle and blew it a kiss. Lovino felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. He followed Amelia down the street, not sure where she was headed, but taking up her earlier insistence to have faith.

The destination turned out to be Amelia's apartment building, or rather, the convenience store across the street. Assuring Lovino that the stop wouldn't take long, Amelia approached the cashier, a young Asian man with sideswept hair and a bored expression.

"Hi," she greeted, "You wouldn't happen to have any maps of the city? Like, tourists maps for people who want to walk around?"

He lazily nodded towards a stand on the end of the counter. In one fluid move Amelia thanked him, grabbed a map, and pulled Lovino back out of the store.

After once again disarming then rearming her bizarre security system Amelia shoved the folder and map into Lovino's arms and told him to clear off the dining table. She then scrounged around the mountains of junk in her living room, letting out a hum of success each time she found what she was looking for. Gripping her supplies, which included a pencil, a protractor, and a few loose pieces of lined paper, she sat down and opened the case file. Gaping curiously at the content she began to remove, Lovino took the seat across from her.

Most of the file consisted of photographs of the crime scene, which Amelia laid out carefully in some sort of arrangement that Lovino assumed was purposeful. There were plenty of notes as well, some written directly on the photos, others on pages of their own. Amelia took to reading them intently, her face scrunched up in deep thought as she looked over everything. Lovino didn't realize he was staring until her eyes flicked up at him and he quickly looked away, his face turning red.

"I hate to bring up any bad feelings," she began uneasily, "but I need some help figuring out the placement of people."

"What do you need to know?" he asked, relieved that she didn't seem to notice his creepy behavior.

"Do you remember what direction your grandfather's head was facing when he was shot?"

Lovino had to think about that. At first, all he could see was his grandfather's limp body, his head bloodied and his eyes wide. Then, the image of the man slumping forward replayed over and over. Finally, Lovino could picture how he looked right before the shot. He had been talking about unity in the face of discrimination. He had been doing that thing that speakers do where they look back and forth across the crowd to make it seem like they wanted to connect with every individual in their audience. He was about to get to the point of his speech, where he would speak in the direction of the entire crowd, as evenly as possible.

"Forward," Lovino answered, "I remember it clearly, he was facing straight forward."

Amelia hummed, then unfolded the map and laid it out on a clear portion of the table. Looking back and forth between the case notes and the map, she carefully sketched a small square over the green patch symbolizing the park.

"This might take a while," she said, "A lot of people were shot."

"How many in all?"

"Twenty-six."

Lovino had to sit back and process that. Twenty-six people were dead. Twenty-six people that he _knew_. Lovino had seen death up close before, but never this amount at once. He heard Amelia ask him something.

"What?"

"Did you see anyone else get shot? Like, do you remember seeing it directly?"

"I..uh...I saw…" Lovino's stomach dropped when the memory came racing back to him. "I saw Antonio."

"Antonio?"

"Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. He was my bodyguard. Fuck!" Lovino held his face in his hands. Antonio wasn't a saint, but he didn't deserve such a senseless death, especially since he was too low-level to be responsible for any of the family's plots. Whoever shot him was certainly aiming for Lovino. "He was protecting me. He...he _died_ trying to protect me."

Amelia scanned over the stacks of photos, picking up several before finding the one she was looking for. She held it up so Lovino could see. "Is this him?"

It was hard to tell at first glance. The photographs featured the same crumpled figure from different angles, some showing the whole body, others close-ups. The head was distorted by a huge gaping hole above the right eye. The rest of the face was covered in blood and brain matter. Sure enough, though, Lovino recognized the curly brown hair and mouth no longer curved into its familiar smile.

He started heaving again.

"Woah, are you okay, man?" Amelia asked, her eyes wide. Lovino shook his head frantically and jumped out of his seat to rush to the bathroom. He stumbled into a kneeling position on the floor and threw up the small amount of cereal he'd eaten for breakfast. It was only after he was done and noticed hand lightly placed on his back that Lovino realized Amelia had followed him. He felt a surge of shame eating away at his insides as he wiped away the tears that threatened to spill out of the corners of his eyes.

"Lovino, I'm so sorr…"

"Just go away," he snapped, "Leave me alone."

She left without another word.

Lovino didn't move a muscle. The humiliation brought a deep bubbling anger that threatened to overflow. He wanted to scream out profanities at the top of his lungs. He wanted to grab Amelia's little ceramic toothbrush holder and smash it against the mirror. He wanted to let the whole world know how pissed he was at everything he'd been put through, but he didn't. I couldn't and he knew it. Instead, he took a few deep breaths and headed back to the dining table.

Amelia had taken to marking the park map with little X's, each with a name written next to them. Lovino watched as she lined up her protractor over one of the pictures, measures something, then scribbled down a series of numbers on one of her loose papers.

"What are you doing?" Lovino asked, still feeling a bit awkward over his behavior.

Amelia looked up at him and smiled. "I'm trying to determine the source of the gunshots. Here, look." She picked up a stack of pictures and handed them to Lovino. "I promise it's not like the other one," she added quietly.

Lovino flipped through them. "It's a bullet," he observed.

"It's actually a bunch of different bullets," she corrected, "But they're all from the same gun."

"What makes you say that?"

"You see those grooves in the side?" Amelia pointed them out in the photo. "That comes from being shot through the barrel. Each gun is slightly different, so the striations are different too, but if multiple bullets have the same striations, then you know they came from the same gun."

"So there was only one shooter?"

"I think. Some of the bullets were still in the victims, so I didn't get a look at all of them. But that's what it looks like."

"How could one person kill twenty-six guys without anyone stopping them?"

"That's the other thing. There were no cartridges found at the scene, so it looks like a long ranged attack."

"So a sniper?"

"Exactly. Now I'm just trying to figure out where they were shooting from."

"How are you going to do that?"

Amelia pointed to the photo she was drawing on. It was a close up shot of a capo's bloodied head. "If you look at the bullet wounds, you can see that the exit wound, if there is one, is lower than the entry wound, so from that you know the shooter was somewhere higher up than the victims. Normally, they would use string to track trajectory, but didn't do that probably because the shooter was so far away, so instead we'll be relying on trigonometry. You can use the angle between the two wounds to form a right triangle with the path of the bullet serving as the hypotenuse. It's not perfect, because of gravity pulling on the bullet as it's in the air, plus the shift in velocity that takes place when the bullet hits, but all you have to do is make a few adjustments in the calculations."

Lovino only half-listened to her explain what she was doing, knowing full well that he'd forgotten everything he learned about trigonometry in high school. Amelia, on the other hand, seemed fully in her element as she hurriedly scribbled down numbers and symbols. Eventually, she stopped narrating, either catching on to the fact that it was all going over Lovino's head or simply because she got too caught up in her own work.

The room was silent aside from the scratching of Amelia's pencil. Lovino slumped in the dining chair, hoping she would be done soon so he would once again be distracted by the swirl of negative emotions that stewed inside of him. He felt useless just sitting there, and guilty for lashing out at Amelia for trying to help. From somewhere in the back of his head, a voice assured that he would make it up to her, but another louder voice reminded him that he had nothing to offer.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Amelia put down her pencil and leaned back in her chair. "Okay," she said, "I think I've got it."

"Where the shots came from?"

Amelia nodded. "It was hard to find the horizontal direction of the shots because a lot of the bodies were moved around after they fell, but the ones on the platform pretty much stayed in place, especially your grandfather." She slid the map across the table so Lovino could see. About half of the Xs she had drawn before had lines leading from each of them towards a single circle drawn on top of a building across the street from the park.

"Once I found an approximate location on this axis, I calculated the height. The shooter was about ninety to ninety five feet up , which is about the eighth story of a hotel or office building."

"It's a hotel," Lovino confirmed, "Feliciano and I used to go to that park all the time as kids. We'd walk down that block on the way home."

Amelia nodded. "I figured that'd be the case. The shooter probably arranged it in advance. They'd have to in order to get a good vantage point."

"Are you sure they could have been that far away?" The hotel was across the street from the other edge of the park from where the rally was held.

"Oh, yeah. It's only like 500 yards. That's nothing for a well-trained military sniper. What's really impressive is how fast and efficient. Twenty-six men killed with exactly twenty-six bullets all within the span of ten minutes. That's incredibly difficult, even by military standards. You're looking for someone who's basically a real-life Deadshot."

"A real-life what?"

"Deadshot. You know, the Batman villain?"

Lovino looked at her blankly.

"Ugh, nevermind. They're really good at shooting, okay?"

"Okay, so what do we do with this information?" Lovino tried not sound too irritated, but the realization that they had wasted their time just to find out that the killer was a good shot was threatening to set him off.

"Wait, I'm not done." Amelia pulled out the stack of bullet photos again. "These bullets, they're 7.62×53mmR cartridges."

"I don't know anything about guns, Amelia, please just get to the point."

"Okay, okay. Sorry. The point is, I recognize the type of gun that uses this ammo. It's a Finnish variant of a Soviet rifle. I also happen to know that it's the weapon of choice of an extremely efficient hitman who specializes in long-range sniping."

"Really?" Lovino was once again lifted by hope.

"Yes," Amelia said with a grin, "His name is Tino Väinämöinen, and he works for Ivan Braginsky."


	7. Reacquainted

_**5 years earlier**_

Lovino had long grown used to his position in his family's syndicate. He was well-known throughout the family to begin with, being the grandson of the boss, but before he'd been seen as a bit of an unspoken disappointment, with lower-ranked members teasing him behind his back and higher-ups not taking him seriously. It was something that irritated him to no end, but it was the life he knew.

After the incident in the shop, however, things changed. The news of Lovino's confrontation with Sadiq spread faster than he wanted. Nobody said anything about it outright, but he could tell that they knew by the way he was treated. The older members would give him rough pats on the back when he walked into the room, and associates would call him sir when he picked up packages. He should have been happy with his newfound respect, but instead Lovino just felt bad knowing what he did to earn it.

The only good part about his building reputation was that it meant he was less likely to have to hurt people. They would still send him out with Antonio to confront trouble-makers, but there weren't a lot of people in the neighborhood who were willing to part with heir digits, so getting what they wanted without violence was easy. Lovino still yelled at people sometimes, but not like before. He made sure to be aware of his actions now. He didn't let the anger take over.

Feliciano was just about the only person who didn't act like Lovino was a different person. Lovino guessed it was because his brother was too sheltered to know what he did, but deeper down he both hoped and feared that that wasn't the case. He was too afraid to bring up the topic.

Lovino's grandfather, on the other hand, would not drop the subject. Over and over, he would say how proud he was of his oldest grandson, how Lovino had finally begun to earn a spot within the family. Feliciano would smile at him from across the dinner table and say something about how he had always been proud of him. Then both of them would talk about Lovino's parents being proud of him. Lovino hated when they talked about his parents.

Every bit of praise Lovino received served to make him feel worse, but he didn't show it. Instead, he smiled and laughed when he was with the family and smirked when he saw scared clients holding their fingers. He went along with all of it because he had no idea what else to do.

Then one night it all came crashing down. He had been eating dinner alone with Feliciano, their grandfather out doing whatever business needed to be done. Feliciano had prepared some sort of French dish, something that he'd learned in his Home Ec class and wanted to try out. Lovino had thought it was very good, but said it was only okay. Feliciano was talking about something that happened at school, and Lovino was only half-paying attention. Then the brothers heard the crash of the front door slamming open and the shouts of a few men. Their grandfather appeared in the dining room doorway.

"Lovino," he barked, "Come with me. Feliciano, stay here."

"What's going on?" Lovino asked as they hurried towards the basement.

His grandfather grinned. "You're going to become a made man."

The basement was lit only by a single light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Directly underneath was a single folding chair on which sat a tied-up man with a burlap sack over their head. The two soldiers that were standing next to the figure were immediately told to leave, which they did without question. Lovino could hear low whining coming from under the sack.

"Lovino, I've been thinking a lot about you lately. When you and your brother first came to live with me I was sure I could teach you both how to run this family." He chuckled. "Some of the men didn't think so, they thought you two were too wimpy, but I said 'no, there's potential in them' and I want to thank you for proving me right."

Lovino stared at the tied-up man without a word. The whining was louder now, and he rocked back and forth against his restraints.

"Now that you're finally ready to join the family, I can barely contain my excitement. I can't wait to show you everything I know. But first…"

He stepped forward and ripped off the sack in one fluid motion. Lovino gaped in horror at Sadiq's bloodied and bruised face. The bound man cried out from around the cloth gagging him.

"I've been told that after your little dispute, Sadiq here ran to the police. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Sadiq shook his head frantically, his shouts getting louder and more panicked. Lovino took a step back and averted his eyes.

"Look at him, Lovino. He's a liar and a snitch. He thought he could pull one over on us, then when he failed, he thought he could have them lock us up. Pathetic little rat. Fit for extermination."

Lovino felt his arm being grabbed and held up, then a cold metal object being placed in his open palm. He looked up to see himself holding a handgun. Sadiq's screams were louder than ever as he attempted to beg for his life. The only other set of eyes in the room stared at him with cold expectancy.

Lovino held the gun with both hands and didn't even attempt to stop trembling as he pointed the barrel at Sadiq's forehead. With a sharp click, he cocked the gun. The entire room was filled with Sadiq's wails of terror.

Lovino took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and dropped his arms to his side.

"I can't do it," he said quietly. Sadiq was sobbing now, tears of relief streaming down his face.

Suddenly, the gun was ripped from Lovino's hand and a deafening shot rang out. Sadiq slumped silently back in his chair. Lovino turned wide-eyed to see his grandfather lowering the smoking gun. Ears still ringing and mouth gaping, all Lovino could do was stand in place. His grandfather stormed past him, hitting his shoulder hard enough to make Lovino stumble. The sound of his feet against the stairs were like tiny echos of the gun. He flung open the door, the light streaming in and clearly revealing his hateful scowl. Lovino couldn't help but look to the ground.

" _Coward!_ " his grandfather spat.

The door slammed shut and Lovino was left alone in darkness.

Lovino glanced down over the marked map, then up again at Amelia's wide eyes.

"Are you sure this Väinämöinen guy is the shooter?" he asked, not wanting to get his hopes up.

"I mean, I can't guarantee anything," she answered, her smile fading, "But everything about this case matches up with Tino's style."

"And you're that familiar with his style?"

Amelia laughed. "Tino taught me everything I know about firearms. I'm would say I'm incredibly familiar with his style, not to mention his skill set is on a whole other level. You said you don't know anything about guns Lovino, trust me when I say the chances of finding another shooter in the area capable of pulling this off are slim."

"Okay, so what are we going to do with this information?" Although the revelation was somewhat gratifying, they seemed nowhere closer to finding Feliciano.

"Well, the whole reason we even took the time to do this is to confirm who the killer was, right? So, now that we know that it's Ivan…"

"Wait, it wasn't Ivan, though."

Amelia rolled her eyes. "Fine, someone who works for Ivan. Now that…"

"Does he? Still work for Ivan, I mean. Couldn't he have left after you did?"

She huffed with impatience. "So Tino kills your grandfather and Elizabeta and Gilbert show up looking for you, but neither of them are still working for the guy who has it out for your family? Seems pretty coincidental to me."

Lovino shrugged in reluctant acceptance.

"Anyway, now that we know Ivan's behind this, we can go and see if he has Feliciano. If he doesn't we know he's hiding out somewhere safe, and if he does we'll save him."

Lovino frowned. For all her initial reluctance to get involved, Amelia sure was eager to jump into action. Finding Feliciano was at the top of Lovino's priority list, but he wasn't one for impulsivity in the face of danger. He had thought Amelia was the same way, but her so-called plan had him doubting his assessment.

"So what, are we just going to barge into Ivan's house and demand he hand over my brother?"

"No, we need to go about this quietly, you know? Find out what Ivan knows first. If we can avoid him entirely, that would best, but if it comes down to it we should be ready for a confrontation."

Something about her tone struck Lovino as odd. It was like she couldn't decide which outcome she preferred.

"Listen, I know a couple of guys that could help us out. They work for Ivan, but they're trustworthy and they could get us into contact with Tino. If there's anyone who can tell us what's going on, it'd be him, right?"

Lovino wasn't on meeting his would-be assassin face to face and he told Amelia as much.

She waved him off. "Tino wouldn't hurt anyone if I asked him not to. He's like a dad to me."

That wasn't the only thing that Lovino was worried about, but at this point, it seemed like Amelia had made up her mind.

"Fine," he agreed reluctantly, "How are you going to do this?"

"Okay, so I know this guy, he's not, like, involved in any syndicates, he's just a friend of one of the other guys. He runs a pet store over off Columbus, not too far away. I say we go talk to him, then he could talk to the other guy, who could talk to the other other guy, who can talk to Tino."

"Do you have names for any of these guys?"

"Oh, sorry." She laughed. "The pet store guy is Felicks, whose friends with Toris, who works with Eduard, who knows Tino."

Lovino didn't know why he thought that would help. Still, as long as Amelia knew what she was doing, it should be fine. He just hoped Amelia knew what she was doing. "Alright. Let's go talk to the pet store guy."

Amelia beamed at him, then widened her eyes and sucked in a bit of air. "Oh, wait! First…"

She jumped up from the table and rushed to the living room where she began digging through a rather large pile of junk. She let out a triumphant "Aha" as she pulled out a weathered baseball bat. "For protection," she explained with a wink.

"You have any other weapons you could lend me?"

"Do you know how to work a customized handmade crossbow?"

"No."

"Then no. All the usual weapon depots are in the pocket of one syndicate or another, so I couldn't risk it."

Lovino wilted in disappointment.

"Hey, don't worry," she assured with a hard pat on the back, "We're trying to avoid confrontation, remember? This is just in case."

Amelia was right about the pet store not being far. After just a twenty minute walk, the duo stood before the front windows, behind which was placed a colorful display of dog beds, cat toys, and assorted cages. A neon sign blinking the word 'open' hung over the glass door. As they walked in the sounds of outside traffic were replaced by the tweeting of birds and scurrying of rodents. From somewhere in the back of the store a man's voice could be heard.

"And so I told him, Tor, I was like 'I love ponies as much as the next guy, but we're in the middle of the freaking city, so no I don't carry equestrian supplies.'"

Walking around a row of tropical fish tanks, Lovino saw a check-out counter. Behind it a man with chin-length blonde hair sat on a stool. He was facing towards the wall on their left and talking animatedly on the phone.

"Ha, yeah. He was so pissed, but like, whatever, right?" He glanced at them for a split second out of the corner of his eye. "Ah, just give me a sec, Tor." He set the phone down on the counter and spun around to fully face them.

"Heey, how can I he...Amelia?" In his surprise he almost fell off the stool, but grabbed the counter just in time to steady himself. "Holy shit!"

"Hi," she replied with a friendly wave.

"Oh my god, what are you doing here? Toris said they killed you!"

"Oh, yeah. No. I mean, they tried, but...Uh, were you just talking to Toris on the phone there? 'Cause I was hoping you could help me contact him."

Felicks, still shocked, looked down at the receiver and blinked.

"Oh, yeah!" he suddenly blurted out. He clumsily snatched the phone and shoved it against his own face.

"Toris!" he shouted, "You need to come to the shop right now...no, I'm fine...no, this is _not_ like that time with the...just get over here!"

"Tell him to bring Eduard," Amelia interjected with a grin.

"And bring Eduard...because I said so, that's why...come on, Tor, it's a surprise." Felicks let let out a heavy sigh. "Okay, fine. There's someone here to see you...no, this is not like _that_ time with the…god, Toris you're such a bummer, you know that? It's Amelia… yes, _that_ Amelia."

He held the phone away from his ear with a flinch while a tinny voice blared "Why wouldn't you start with that!" With a roll of his eyes, Felicks pulled the receiver close again.

"I told you, Tor, it was supposed to be a surprise. Now get over here."

"Tell him don't forget to bring Eduard!"

"And don't forget to bring Eduard."

He hung up the phone with a slam, then got up to turn off the open sign. Returning back behind the counter, he wasted no time in telling Amelia everything that had been going on in his life since they last met, most of which Lovino found incredible boring, yet oddly reminiscent of Feliciano's usual babbling.

Luckily, not ten minutes later, the front door burst open and three men walked in. The first one had shaggy brown hair and gaunt features. Right behind him was a shorter man with a blonde bowl cut and thick glasses. Trailing at the end was a younger guy, really more of a boy, with fair, wavy hair and aa anxious expression.

"Amelia? Is that really you?" the brunette one asked shakily.  
"Toris!" she squealed in reply, rushing over to wrap him in a bear hug.

"Where have you been," he gasped, "We heard that you and Matthew were...that Ivan..."

"He did!" she interrupted, "The whole shebang too, with the water and the ice. Look!" She held up her right hand to show off her missing fingers. The four men looked at it in awe.

"How did you survive?" the one with glasses asked.

Amelia laughed awkwardly. "Just barely, really, as far as I know. I was really out of it by the end, you know? I remember hearing Ivan say to throw us in the river. I guess whoever took me was feeling lazy because I woke up in a hospital and they told me I was found dying of hypothermia in some alley."

"What about Matthew?" the young boy asked.

" _Raivis,_ " Toris hissed.

"The last thing I saw was them dragging him out," she answered thickly, "He wasn't moving, but I don't know if he was…" Her voice died out. Lovino glared at the back of Raivis's head.

The blond one, who Lovino guessed was Eduard, crossed his arms. "So you've been alive this whole time and you haven't bothered to tell us until now?"

"I've been trying to keep a low profile," Amelia answered sheepishly.

"Everyone thought you were dead! All anyone could talk about was how 'Ivan finally snapped' and 'you better watch out, or you'll end up like the twins'. People left because of you, Amelia! Then everything got worse because Ivan decided that we couldn't be trusted. Now we aren't allowed to talk to anyone and Ivan and Natalia are always breathing down our necks."

Lovino was getting pretty pissed at this guy. It wasn't Amelia's fault they chose to work for a lunatic, and she didn't deserve to get yelled at for trying to save her own life.

"If it's so bad, why didn't you leave sooner?" he called out.

Eduard turned to glare at him while Raivis and Felicks both spoke.

"Ivan won't let us," the boy said quietly, a sentiment mostly drowned out by the older man's "Toris doesn't want to leave Natalia."

"What?" Amelia's face scrunched in disbelief. "Toris, you're still hung up on that psycho?"

Whos Natalia?" Lovino discreetly asked Felicks over his shoulder.

"Ivan's little sister," he answered indiscreetly, "She's a total sadist who does anything Ivan tells her to. She's got, like, a complex or something." He shot an annoyed glance at Toris. "Tor is, like, in love with her, so he won't leave until he can convince her to go too, which is, like, never going to happen."

Amelia stepped between Toris and Felicks. "Now isn't the time for this," she said, "I came out of hiding because I need your help." She walked over to Lovino and put a hand on his shoulder. "This is Lovino. His grandfather was killed yesterday and I think Tino was the one who did it. Do you guys know if Ivan had any beef with the Vargas family?"

"It's hard to say," Toris replied, scratching the back of his neck, "Like Eduard said, everything's been pretty disjointed since what happened with you and Matthew. Ivan really drew into himself and now he hardly says anything to anyone besides Nat."

"You said you think Tino did it?" Eduard interrupted, "He was one of the first to leave after what happened."

"What? He was?"Amelia glanced at Lovino, who shrugged in return.

"Yeah, he was really upset about the whole thing."

"So he doesn't answer to Ivan anymore?" Lovino asked.

"Not quite. See, he used to only work for Ivan, but now he's more of a freelancer. As in, he's willing to work for anyone."

"And Ivan just let him walk away?"

"You haven't met Tino, have you, Lovino?"

He shook his head. The more he learned about Tino, the less he wanted to meet him.

"He's very good at what he does, which makes him dangerous. It gives him more leverage than most of us. I've been trying to talk him into letting me work for him for a while now."

"So you are in contact with him?" Amelia asked, her head bobbing up and down with eagerness.

"Yeah, I can give you directions if you want."

"That would be great!"

A hushed voice distracted Lovino from their conversation. He glanced over to see Toris leaning down over the counter in front of Felicks.

"I told you to bring Eduard, not _him_ ," the blonde hissed. Lovino turned to see Raivis awkwardly examining a stack of guinea pig treat boxes.

Toris whispered something back, too softly for Lovino to hear.

"He can't keep a secret for the life of him, Tor, you told me yourself."

More whispering.

Lovino was pulled out of the conversation by Amelia's hand around his wrist.

"Come on, dude!" she said, waving a scribbled-on napkin, "I've got the address. Let's go."

After a short round of good-byes and a promise to keep in touch, Amelia dragged him out the door. With all things considered, Lovino ought to have been hopeful. After all, they had managed to get exactly what they were looking for out of the detour, and it had barely taken any of their time. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go very wrong.


	8. The Hitman

Lovino tried to prepare himself for the meeting, but he had no idea what to expect. He wasn't even sure how upset he was. His grandfather, Antonio, and all of the other family members knew what they were getting into, and if he was being perfectly honest, he might say that he thought they deserved it, but that didn't change the fact that they were people he knew and, as hard as it was to admit, cared about. And then, on top of everything, Lovino and Feliciano were still being targeted. Anger, fear, and an amalgamation of other unpleasant emotions melded together somewhere in his gut, and it took all Lovino had not to let it show. He had never been good at hiding his emotions, but it didn't seem to matter anyway as Amelia was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to comment.

They walked silently down the street until Amelia slowed down and checked the paper she had gotten from Eduard.

"I think this is it," she said, pointing towards a quaint storefront advertising Swedish handmade furniture. It didn't look like a base for a criminal business, but then again, neither did the Vargas family's Italian restaurant.

The inside of the store was brightly lit with stylish ceiling lamps that, when paired with the yellow wallpaper and hardwood floors, brought forth a feeling of warmth to those who didn't know better. Sleek furniture sets were arranged artfully around the room, some being looked over by potential customers. Throughout the store there was a faint sound of a song by some popular Swedish pop band that Lovino couldn't remember the name of.

They made a beeline for the first employee they saw, a young guy with pale hair bent over a coffee table with a dusting cloth.

"Excuse me," Amelia said, tapping him on the shoulder. Engrossed in his task, and quietly singing about dancing queens, he jumped at the touch and turned around.

"I'm sorry, you star...AMELIA?" A few customers turned at the outburst and the man covered his mouth in embarrassment.

"Amelia," he said again, much quieter, "How are you...we thought you were dead!"

"Yeah, long story short, I'm not. Now we really need to speak to Tino."

"Tino? Oh my god, Tino! And everyone else! They're going to freak when they see you!" His voice had risen again, bringing another round of glares.

A door along the back wall of the store swung open and a hulking blond man with glasses stepped out. "Emil," he said in a low voice, "What's going on?"

Emil immediately pointed at Amelia, who waved sheepishly. "Hi, Berwald."

He studied her up and down, his stern expression unchanging. "Is it really you?" he finally asked.

Amelia nodded with a small smile and Berwald moved forward to pull her into a tight hug. Finally breaking away, he held her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "What happened?"

"Berwald, I need to talk to Tino."

He looked her over again, then nodded curtly. "C'mon," he replied, letting go. He turned around and took a step before abruptly spinning back again and sending a glare over Amelia's head. Lovino froze in his tracks, thoroughly intimidated.

"Not you," Berwald grunted, "You stay here."

It took a moment and a whining protest from behind for Lovino to realize that it was Emil who was being addressed, not him. Amelia, noticing his discomfort, bent down to whisper in his ear as they followed Berwald to the back of the building.

"He's not as scary as he seems," she assured, "I promise. He's probably the least dangerous person here, actually."

"That really doesn't make me feel better," he whispered back.

Berwald led them up a flight of stairs and into a quaint little apartment. It looked like it could have been an extension of the furniture store below if it weren't for the obvious signs of residency, namely the three men seated around the round kitchen table sipping coffee.

"Tino!" Berwald called out, showing more emotion than he had since they arrived. It was almost comical the way he effortlessly picked up Amelia and placed her in front of him. All three men shot up from their chairs, their mouths agape.

"Amelia?" one of them said.

"Tino!" she answered.

Lovino couldn't say what he expected of his grandfather's killer, but it certainly wasn't _this._ Judging by the way Amelia's nose brushed the top of his blonde head as they hugged, Tino was short, shorter than Lovino even. His boyish face made it hard to guess his age, and his round shoulders gave his build an impression of softness. Everything Lovino had planned on saying flew out of his head and he stood in silence as he watched Amelia go through yet another reunion.

After promising to give everyone the whole story of her survival later, Amelia shifted attention towards Lovino.

"Lovino," she said softly, her eyes carefully studying his face, "This is Tino. Tino, this is Lovino."

Tino smiled warmly and held out his hand. "It's so nice to meet you!"

Lovino looked down at the outstretched palm, then back up again.

"You killed my grandfather," he stated matter-of-factly.

"...Oh…" Tino's smile faltered.

"Yesterday. You killed him yesterday."

"...Oh...Did he work for Vargas?" Tino's arm fell limply to his side.

"My grandfather _was_ Vargas."

Nobody said anything as they stared at each other through the suffocating awkwardness. The silence was finally broken by a rather dramatic cough, followed by someone hissing " _Really_ ,Matthias?"

"What? I'm not allowed to cough?" Lovino turned to see a tall, spiky-haired man rubbing his side where he was just elbowed by a shorter man with a cross-shaped hair clip.

Amelia stepped in between Tino and Lovino, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

"Look," she said, "This was probably not the best way to go about this."

"You think?" Lovino shot back.

She pursed her lips, but continued. "Tino, could you give us a minute to talk alone?"

He nodded vigorously. "Of course! Why don't you use the living room? Would you like some coffee?"

"That'd be great," she answered, already dragging Lovino into the next room.

When they were alone, Lovino buried his head in his hands and groaned.  
"Hey," Amelia said softly, "Are you alright? I mean, I guess you're not _alright_ … but, like, are you going to be able to do this?"

"I...I don't know," he answered truthfully, "I'm just...I wasn't sure what to expect. My grandfather and I...it wasn't like how it was between you and your brother. He was never there for us. All he really wanted was someone to take over his syndicate, but _I_ wasn't going to do that and Feli...he could never. All we were to him were failures and I hated it...I hated _him_. And I always figured it would end like this, with him getting his brains blown out, but I thought it would be personal, you know? That he'd fall during some gunfight like in the movies and it would be this dramatic end to his reign of terror but no. Instead he was shot by some random guy who lives above a _fucking_ furniture store and I just...I just want to know why he did it."

"He's a hitman, Lovino…"

"I want to hear it from him."

Amelia looked at him with a strange, sad expression and nodded sagely. "Yeah, okay." She silently pulled him into a quick but tight hug. "Are you ready to ask him?"

"Yeah, I think I am."

The two returned to the kitchen to see Tino sitting alone at the table with a folder placed in front of him. Two chairs faced him, each with a steaming cup of coffee before them. Berwald was gone, but the other two men were standing nervously by the door. All three figures eyed Lovino warily as he sat down next to Amelia.

"So," Lovino began, struggling to maintain his cool demeanor, "Are all of your buddies hitmen or is it just you?"

Tino's eyes widened slightly at the bluntness. "It's just me, Matthias, and Lucas involved in that business. Emil, the boy you met downstairs, he's Lucas's brother, but he mostly just works in the store. Technically, I'm a co-owner with Berwald, but my husband's the one who really keeps it running."

"Husband?" Lovino repeated with curiosity.

"Not legally, of course, but we've been together for over a decade, so boyfriend sounds a bit too juvenile, and partner has such professional connotations." Tino studied Lovino as if he was trying to see if that was a problem. It wasn't, but even if it was, Lovino was smart enough not to say so.

"Ah. So, you were paid to kill my grandfather?"

"Yes." There was a surprising lack of hesitation.

"And that's the only reason you did it? No vendetta or revenge plan?"

"Not of my own. You have to understand, Lovino, it's not personal. I've never met your grandfather, or anyone from the Vargas family. I was contacted by a third party in need of my services."

"So this third party paid you to kill twenty-six men yesterday afternoon?"

"Not quite. The first condition of the contract was that I would kill your grandfather. As the leader of the syndicate, he was the top priority, and the contract would only be upheld if he was dead. Then, I was provided with a list of members to target, for each of these members I took out, I would be provided with additional compensation. Please forgive me if I would prefer not to disclose that amount. I was notified of the political rally your grandfather organized, and instructed to carry out the murders on that day, and that day only. " He chuckled. "I don't think my client expected me to be as good at my job as I am."

"So you killed everyone on the list?"

"No, just the listed members that attended that rally. But that was only what I did personally. Lucas and Matthias were posted outside your grandfather's home and restaurant and together they killed five more men. So that would be thirty-one. That was most of the list, but not all."

"I was at the rally, but you didn't kill me."

"You weren't on the list." He pushed the folder forward. "See for yourself."

Lovino rifled through its contents, an organized list of family members, each with a name, picture, and physical information. Most of the entries were marked with red Xs, and Lovino recognized them as the murdered men. Sure enough, Lovino was not listed, but that fact was forgotten when he came across a grainy picture of Feliciano's smiling face. The lack of red on the page had Lovino almost crying out in relief. He turned the folder to face Tino.

"What do you know about this man?" he asked.

Tino took the folder and read over the entry. "Feliciano Vargas, non-member associate, grandson of…"

"No," Lovino cut him off, "I mean, did you see him yesterday?"

"If I saw him yesterday, he'd be dead. Everyone on that list with a mark next to them either attended that rally or came by the house or restaurant."

Lovino narrowed his eyes and snatched back the folder. "That doesn't make sense," he thought out loud, "Feli said he'd meet us at the rally. We couldn't find him, but he should have been there!" He flipped through the folder again until he found Ludwig Beilschmidt's frowning face, also unmarked. "His bodyguard didn't show up either?"

"Isn't that a good thing?" Amelia asked, "Why are you so upset?"

"Because none of this makes sense!" Lovino turned to Antonio's entry. "Look! Why would they target my bodyguard, but not me?" He looked up at Tino. "Who paid you to do this?"

"I don't know," he answered quietly.

"You don't know?" Lovino repeated incredulously, "How could you not know? What kind of hitman are you?"

"A discreet one."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lovino's voice was rising, but he didn't care. "What, do you just get hit-lists in the mail and start shooting?"

"I have a representative meet with clients in an undisclosed location. I never talk to them in person."

"Well that's just fucking great, isn't it?" Lovino sat back in the chair and let out a harsh laugh. "The one assassin in the city that doesn't ask questions."

Tino had the audacity to remain calm throughout the exchange, albeit mildly concerned about the outbursts. Lovino couldn't believe professional murderer could be so patronizing.

Amelia placed her hand on Lovino's forearm as she addressed Tino. "Could it have been Ivan that contacted you? We have reason to believe that he's been out for the Vargas family."

Tino shrugged. "Could be, I'm not sure. Like I said, I use a third-party, this Romanian friend of Lucas's. I suppose I could contact him to ask, but for all I know, the client used a representative too."

Amelia glanced at Lovino for approval. "Yes," he said, "We'd like to talk to him."

"Alright," Tino replied, "But honestly, I don't think it was Ivan."

"What makes you say that?" Amelia asked.

"I don't think he'd try to work with me after I abandoned him. You know how he is, Amelia. If someone betrays him, he'd do anything for revenge, you know that better than anyone. He went after you and Matthew when you two drifted away, then he tried to get Gilbert and Elizaveta when they left, then Yekaterina…"

"Woah, woah, woah, wait," Amelia interrupted, "What did you just say?"

"Yekaterina left. She's his sister so he was a little lenient with her, but…"

"No, before that. _Gilbert and Elizabeta_ left?"

"Yeah, they were the first to go. They were really pissed about what happened, we all were."

"So they don't work for Ivan anymore? Like, at all. No connection whatsoever?"

"I mean, I left right after them, so I can't say for certain, but I seriously doubt they'd go back, or that Ivan would even let them."

"Oh shit," she muttered bringing her hands to her face, "Shit, shit, shit, do you know what this means?"

"No?" Tino answered.

"No, not you, Lovino! Lovino, when we saw them at the casino, they weren't there for Ivan!"

Lovino, who had been struck speechless by this revelation, felt his mouth drop. "Why were they there then?"

Amelia turned back to Tino. "Do you know where they were going when they defected?"

"Not specifically," he answered with confusion.

"He said he was going to find his brother," another voice interjected, reminding the three that there were other people in the room. It belonged to the taller man, Matthias, who was now staring with wide eyes. "He told me that his brother was a bodyguard for another syndicate. His dad, too. He said that he was going to try and reconcile with them."

"What was Gilbert's last name?" Lovino asked, his voice careful and low.

"I don't know," Amelia admitted. Tino shrugged as well.

"It was something German, I think," mused Matthias, "Something-schmit...like WeirSchmit, or…"

"Beilschmidt," Lucas stated matter-of-factly, "His name was Gilbert Beilschmidt."

"Oh my god," Lovino exclaimed, "We have to get back to that casino."

"Huh?" Amelia shook her head in confusion, "Why?"

"Beilschmidt, Amelia!" He pointed to Ludwig's name in the folder, "Look! Then look at this." He flipped to the page listing his grandfather's bodyguard. "Also Beilschmidt. They're father and son and they work for my family as bodyguards."

Amelia gasped and jumped up from her chair, pulling Lovino up with her. "Holy shit, you're right! C'mon, we gotta go!"

"Hold on," Matthias said, "I'm confused. What about a casino?"

"I'll explain later," Amelia said over her shoulder, "I promise!"

"Amelia, wait!" Tino called out.

But they were already out the door.


	9. Impermanent Goodbyes

Five years earlier

"A degree in what?" Feliciano asked, his head bent down over his plate of pasta.

"Restaurant management," Lovino repeated from across the table.

"But why do you need a degree for that, Lovi? We have our own restaurant."

"It's not the same thing, Feli, you know that. I want to work somewhere legitimate, not just a front for whatever illegal shit grandpa has going on."

"Okay, well, I don't see why you couldn't have applied somewhere in the city! There's gotta be a business school closer to home!"

"That's the point, Feli, I don't want to be close to home."

"Why not?" Feliciano had dropped his silverware in favor of staring intently at his brother. "Does...does it have to do with what happened in the basement that night?"

Lovino clenched his jaw. His brother still didn't know the details of what went down, just that something had drastically changed. Their grandfather hardly ever came home for dinner anymore, and when he did, Lovino would grab a plate and eat in his room. The tension was so thick, even someone as oblivious as Feliciano could sense it."

"No," Lovino answered, "I've been planning this for a long time."

That was only partially true. He'd been thinking about getting a degree since graduating high school, but he hadn't seriously considered it until the incident with Sadiq spooked him into sending out a handful of applications. His grades hadn't been spectacular, but he figured they were good enough for someone out there. College wasn't really something they talked about because everyone just went on to work for the family. The deeper things got, though, the more Lovino searched for a reason to leave. You had to have a reason, a good one at that, for leaving to even be a possibility. College seemed plausible, mostly because it implied that he would eventually come back. Lovino had already decided that he wouldn't come back.

"So what are you going to tell Grandpa?"

"I don't know yet."

"Are you going to tell Grandpa?"

"I...no, I don't think so." Lovino ran his hands through his hair. "Listen, Feli, the semester doesn't start for a few months, but I'm leaving soon, really soon, and I...I want you to come with me."

"Come with you?" Felicia sat up in his chair. "Lovi, what are you talking about?"

"I'll get a job and an apartment. I can find a way to fake guardianship documents and we can enroll you in a new school…"

"Lovi, I can't leave! Everyone I know is here! Ludwig, all my friends, Grandpa…"

Lovino took a deep breath and let it out heavily. "Feliciano, I realize that you've been pretty sheltered from all this, but you have to understand, it isn't safe for you here."

"I'm not stupid, Lovino! I know a lot more than everyone thinks!"

Lovino laughed harshly. "Oh, do you now? Please, tell me what you know."

"I know you cut off a guy's finger!"

Lovino's mean smirk dissipated. "How do you know that?"

"Antonio told me. And you know what? I didn't hold it against you because I could tell that it was eating you up inside."

"What's your point?" Lovino grunted.

"My point is, I know how all this goes. Grandpa won't forget about us."

"So what, Feliciano? Are you just going to sit around here and wait for it to get better? You think Grandpa won't try to recruit you? You think the family's going to go to one of your art shows or eat one of your dishes and let you off the hook because clearly you aren't meant to be a criminal? Hell no! You're going to end up just like them because you're too much of a coward to say no!"

"Yeah, well you're a coward too!" Both brothers were standing up now, shouting across the table. "You think you can trick people into thinking you're not by being an asshole, but it just makes you a cowardly asshole!"

"Fine! Stay here! I don't give a shit what you do anymore! " Lovino shoved his chair out of the way and stomped out of the room, stopping only in the doorway to shout once more over his shoulder. "You can call me a coward all you want for running away, but you know what? At least I'll be fucking alive!"

One silent week later, Lovino stood alone in the dark hallway, one hand gripped tightly around the handle of his suitcase, the other raised in a hesitant fist inches away from his brother's bedroom door. He stayed like that for a while, his arm twitching slightly, before finally lowering it and turning away. He was all the way to the front door when he heard quiet footsteps padding behind him. He looked back to see Feliciano halfway down the stairs, his pajamas wrinkled and his eyes squinting.

"Lovino?" he called out quietly, "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving, Feli," he answered, "For good."

"Already?"

"I told you I was leaving soon. Or did you forget?"

"I remembered, I just...I didn't think it would be this soon."

Lovino didn't know what to say to that, so he just looked down.

"Lovi," Feliciano said, his voice cracking in a way that Lovino knew meant he had tears running down his face, even if they were covered in shadow, "Please don't leave me."

"Come with me. It's not too late."

"I can't. Please, Lovi, just stay here with me."

"I can't."

Lovino opened the front door, the light from the busy street flooding in and illuminating the brothers.

"I call you when I get there," he said over the sound of traffic.

Lovino slipped out of the room and turned around. The last thing he saw before shutting the door were his brother's sad eyes.

* * *

Side by side, Lovino and Amelia stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the furniture store.

"So," Lovino said as he glanced up and down the street, "How do we get back to the casino from here?"

When he didn't get an answer, Lovino looked up at Amelia's face. She was staring off somewhere in the distance, her brows furrowed and her mouth pressed into a tight line.

"Amelia," he said a little louder. She jumped a little, then looked back at him.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"Huh?" She shook her head a little, not as a gesture but as if she were trying to shake her brain into place. "I'm fine. Sorry, what did you say?"

Lovino narrowed his eyes, but turned forward again. "I asked if you knew how to get to the casino from here. I don't know this part of town."

"Oh," she mused, "Uh, yeah, I do, but it's pretty far. We'd probably be better off taking a cab

"Do you have money for a cab?" Lovino asked, remembering his rather embarrassing lack of cash.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't," she replied, patting the pocket of her jacket.

They hailed a taxi and slipped into the backseat. The driver, a sleepy looking man with shaggy brown hair, looked at them funny as he asked where they wanted to go. Lovino felt himself getting annoyed at that, wondering what he thought was so weird, but then noticed Amelia shoving her baseball bat into her jacket as she stated their destination. Lovino had forgotten about the bat somehow, despite it being pretty damn obvious. Maybe it had something to do with the way it seemed to fit perfectly in Amelia's hands. The more he thought about it, the more Lovino felt that he couldn't picture her without it. They spent the trip in silence, both passengers lost in thought and the driver content with letting them stay that way.

The Monte Carlo looked exactly how it had the day before, which felt wrong to Lovino. They had learned so much since they left, everything was different now, but the casino, with all of its glitz and glamor, did not acknowledge this.

Lovino, somewhat energized by the unfairness of it all, marched towards the information booth, Amelia hot on his tails. The same girl was there, with the same uniform and low ponytails. She looked up and let out a small gasp.

"You're that guy from yesterday," she said, before glancing over his shoulder and gasping again, "Amy? What are you doing here? I heard you walked out mid-shift."

"Hey, Michelle," Amelia replied with a weak smile, "Listen, it's kind of a long story that I can't really get into. Right now, though, we really need to talk to Monique. Is she here?"

"She's in her office," Michelle answered, "Go on ahead, I'll call to tell her you're coming. I know she wanted to talk to your friend."

Lovino followed her outstretched finger to the door behind the desk,pushing it open as Amelia called out a thank you from behind him. They found themselves in a small but elegantly decorated waiting room, the only other door located on the opposite wall from where they stood. The two shared a glance, and Amelia stepped forward to knock on its clouded glass surface.

"Come in," called the smooth accented voice.

There was a sharp contrast between Madame Bonnefoy's office and the rest of the casino, though not in decoration so much as atmosphere. The office was as fancy as the rest of the building, but where the casino floor was well-lit and inviting, the office was dark and foreboding. It was as if entering meant you were involved in some big conspiracy you wanted no part in. Madame Bonnefoy herself sat behind a desk too big for someone her size, gazing with mild interest at her two guests.

"Amy Jones," she addressed with a smirk, "I must say, I feel a bit foolish for not connecting your sudden departure yesterday with the business with Monsieur Vargas. I assumed you were just another inconsiderate employee, but now I see you believe yourself to be above reproach."

In the corner of his eye, Lovino could see Amelia frown and drop her head sending a surge of defensiveness over him. "It's not her fault," he replied, "She left because of me."

Luckily, Bonnefoy only seemed amused at his outburst. "Ah, Monsieur Vargas, have you come to steal away another one of my workers?"

"No, actually, I've come to talk to you."

She raised her eyebrow.

"I want to know what you were doing talking to GIlbert Beilschmidt yesterday."

"To whom?" The confusion on her face seemed genuine, but Lovino knew he had to press her.

"Don't play dumb. Yesterday, you pointed me to Amy, and we both saw you talking with Gilbert Beilschmidt along with his colleague Elizabeta."

"Are you talking about the albino man and the brunette he was with?"

"Yes, that's them!" Amelia interjected.

"Ah, I apologize Monsieur Vargas, I'm a very busy woman with a very large amount of contacts. You can't expect me to remember everyone's name."

"So you don't know them personally?"

"Goodness, no! I only met them yesterday. It's a rather long story, in fact, but one very much pertaining to you."

"Really?" Lovino asked, slumping down on a pink velvet couch in front of the desk, "Would you care to tell it?"

Bonnefoy scowled for a split second at his manners before smirking again. "Monsieur Vargas, as I'm sure you are aware, your life is in danger."

"Is it now?"

"From what I've been told, yes. Luckily for you, someone out there apparently cares whether you live or die, and that person happens to be friends with my brother Francis. Yesterday afternoon, Francis asked me to keep an eye out for you." She lifted a photograph from her desk. It was a rather awkward high school graduation photo of Lovino that had Amelia stifling a laugh. "He gave me this picture, and I gave copies to a number of employees with instructions to notify me if they saw you. I was then supposed to call my brother."

"Okay, so why didn't you tell me any of this when I came yesterday instead of pulling all that harassment crap?"

Bonnefoy let out an annoyed huff. "My brother means well, but when he gets wound up he has a tendency to leave out important information. Specifically, he forgot to tell me if you were meant to know that someone was looking for you. I thought the safest bet would be to keep you in the dark just in case, so I opted to stall you until the people Francis sent arrived. I didn't expect you to run off with Amy like that."

Lovino and Amelia shared a sheepish glance.

"Do you have anyway to contact Gilbert and Elizabeta?" Amelia asked, her voice strained slightly.

"No, but I can tell you how to get to my brother's bar. I didn't find this out until you were long gone, but that's apparently where everyone is staying."

"Everyone?"

"Gilbert, Elizabeta, your brother…"

"My brother is at Francis's bar? You know this for sure?"

"He was there yesterday, at least, and from the sound of it, he was going to be there for a while."

Lovino didn't know what to say, instead opting to lean back and let out a sigh of relief.

"We'd really appreciate directions," Amelia said for him.

"It's four blocks west," Bonnefoy answered, handing over a business card, "I hope you don't think this means I'll give you your job back."

"Of course not," she answered, already following Lovino out the door.

The address on the card corresponded to a nondescript storefront with blacked out windows. The only decoration was a neon sign lighting up the words "La Barre de Rose Rouge" alongside a blinking red rose. Lovino glanced back at Amelia, who gave him a single determined nod.

They pushed open the front door to rind a set of stairs leading to a lower floor. A quick trek down led them to the interior of a rather classy jazz bar. Their attention was immediately directed to a small stage opposite them, where a bespectacled pianist accompanying a saxophone player in a green evening dress played for a number of patrons seated around the room on leather couches and dining chairs. Alongside the adjacent wall there was a well-stocked and well-decorated bar manned by a handsome bartender with silky blonde hair pulled into a loose ponytail.

"Bonsoir," he greeted as they approached the bar, "What can I get for you?"

"I'm looking for Francis Bonnefoy," Lovino answered.

"That would be me," the bartender replied with a sultry smile that quickly dissipated as he squinted at Lovino, "Wait a second, you're…"

"Lovino Vargas."

"Lovino?" Francis held up his hand to gasp, then skittered down to the end of the bar where he flung his upper body over the counter. "Gilbert!" he shouted towards a table in the corner.

The pianist, along with several patrons glared at the noise, which made Lovino feel awkward as he crossed the room to follow Francis. Approaching the table, Lovino immediately recognized the pale skin and white hair of the man he saw in the casino the day before. Across from him, with his back initially facing the door, another man turned in his chair revealing another familiar face.

"Ludwig!"

"Lovino?"

"Amelia?"

"Gilbert!"

The four of them stared at each other in shock.

"Where's Feliciano?" Lovino asked, breaking the silence.

"He's out looking for you," Ludwig answered his voice strained as if he were trying too hard to keep it level, "Where have you been all this time?"

"I was out looking for him!"

"With Amelia?" Gilbert interjected, hopping to his feet.

"She's been helping me."

"Of course she has! She'll help any sad sap who finds himself in trouble with the mob. What I'm wondering is why the hell she's still in town!"

"What, no 'I'm so happy you're alive, Amelia'?"

"It's a wonder you're still alive after sticking around for so long! I can't believe I went to all that work saving your ass just for you to ignore everything I told you to do!"

Lovino felt Amelia brush past him as she stepped forward. "What are you talking about?" Her voice wavered slightly.

"The night Ivan freaked out, don't you remember? I told you to leave the city."

"No, I don't remember. You saved me?"

"Yeah, me and Eliza. We dropped you off a block away from the closest hospital, called 911, and waited with you until the ambulance showed up."

Tears were welling up in her eyes. "I thought you still worked for him," she croaked.

"You thought we would still work for him after what he did to you?" Gilbert sounded genuinely hurt.

Amelia half shrugged. "I saw you in the casino yesterday and ran away because I thought Ivan sent you. I made Lovino go with me." That part seemed to push her over the edge and the tears rolled down her face. "Oh god, Lovino, I'm so sorry! I wasted so much of your time!"

Amelia was not a pretty crier. Her face got red and blotchy and it scrunched up unflatteringly. Her nose started running which made her sniff in a way that made her pause in between every word she said. Lovino knew that she was technically right, but all he could think about was how much he hated seeing her upset.

"You didn't waste my time!" he assured her, "Without you, we would have never found out who did it! And we wouldn't have known that we're not being targeted or…"

"Wait," Ludwig interrupted, "Sorry to cut you off, but by 'who did it' do you mean you know who killed all those people?"

"Yeah," he replied, "It was a hitman named Tino."

"That Tino?" Gilbert asked.

"Yeah, that Tino," Amelia confirmed, her sniffles dying down, "But he's not working exclusively for Ivan anymore so we don't know for sure if he's behind it. All we know is that Tino was supposed to kill a whole bunch of mob guys at the rally yesterday."

"Including you and Feliciano," Lovino finished, his eyes now trained back on Ludwig, "Where did you say he was again?"

"He's out looking for you," Ludwig repeated, "But he should be back any time now, we've been taking shifts."

Lovino glared at him suspiciously. "So why weren't you at the rally yesterday? And don't say you were because Tino didn't see you and neither did I."

"We didn't go to the rally." Ludwig was visibly uncomfortable, fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt and avoiding Lovino's gaze. It was a weird dynamic considering he was about a foot taller and quite a bit more muscular.

"Where were you then?"

"We were here. Listen, we had everything planned out. Antonio was supposed to…"

"So you knew about the shooting beforehand?"

"No! The shooting is what ruined everything! It was going perfectly until then! Antonio was supposed to leave with you in the middle of the speech and bring you here. We didn't expect him to get shot!"

"Okay, I'm confused. You were planning this before the rally?"

"Yes."

"So what were you planning exactly?"

Ludwig let out a frustrated grunt. "I can't tell you."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Just tell him," Gilbert urged, "You were going to anyway."

"Not without Feliciano."

"I don't see what the big deal is, Luddy."

"Of course you don't, Gilbert, you don't understand. He needs to hear it from Feliciano."

"Hear what?" Lovino asked.

Ludwig's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. "I. Cannot. Tell. You"

Lovino felt the familiar wave of anger pour over him as he clenched his fists and opened his mouth to yell something back.

"It's fine, Amelia said, beating him to it. She looked at him with her still-watery eyes. "You said Feliciano would be here soon, right? We can wait."

She took his elbow and lightly pulled him to the bar. Francis asked what they wanted and Amelia ordered something that Lovino was too distracted to hear. A minute passed and he felt himself cool off.

"Hey," he said, gently nudging Amelia in the leg, "Thanks."

She smiled at him and opened her mouth to reply, only to catch sight of something over his shoulder. "Lovino, she said pointing, "Look,"

Lovino turned around to see two figures walking down the stairs into the bar. The first was the brunette woman from the casino. Behind her, looking worried but entirely uninjured, was Feliciano.


	10. The Plan

Before Lovino knew it, his brother held him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Lovi!" Feliciano cried, "I'msohappytoseeyouIwassoworriedIhadnoideawhereyouwere…"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Lovino pushed him off. "Let me breath for god's sake."

"How long have you been here? Did Ludwig tell you what happened?"

"Just a few minutes. And no, he didn't tell me anything because he said he had to wait for you."

Lovino pulled a chair up to Gilbert and Ludwig's table and sat down, gesturing for Feliciano to follow suit, which did, sitting directly across from Lovino. Elizabeta and Amelia also joined them, the former in between Feliciano and Gilbert and and the latter between Gilbert and Lovino.

"Alright," huffed Lovino, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Now that everyone is here, please tell me what the hell is going on."

Feliciano glanced down at his hands clutched nervously on the table. "Okay, but first you have to promise you won't get mad."

"Feliciano, we are way beyond me being mad, I am fucking infuriated. I spent the last day and a half thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere just to find out you were here listening to _smooth jazz_. If I wasn't so relieved that you were alive I would kill you myself."

Feliciano swallowed hard. "Oh… then promise you won't get more mad."

"Fuck, fine! I promise!"

"I'm...atrhhmm." He trailed off as he looked away.

"For fuck's sake, Feli, just spit it out!"

He took a deep breath. "I'm attracted to men!"

Lovino had a few questions, but for some reason, he decided to ask the dumbest one first. "Like, sexually?"

"Yeah, but also romantically. I'm attracted to women too! But also definitely to men." The more worked up he got, the more Feliciano waved his hands around. Ludwig and Elizabeta struggled to avoid being hit.

"Feliciano!" Lovino called out, interrupting his brother's rambling, "Calm down. I already knew that."

"What?" Feliciano gawked at him. "You did?"

"Uh, yeah. Since before I left."

"Oh god, how did you know? Was it the way I acted, was I that obvious?"

"Relax, Feli, no! You may be the least subtle person on the planet, but it wasn't the way you acted. You were just...uh…" Lovino looked around awkwardly before switching to Italian. " _You were really bad at hiding your porn."_

Feliciano covered his face in embarrassment. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Um, I don't know if you noticed, but I was dealing with some pretty heavy shit. I didn't exactly have the time to deal with your teenage sexual experimentation."

"It's not experimentation, Lovino, I really am attracted to both."

"That's not what I meant, Feli, c'mon. I just trying to say that I didn't think it would become a problem. I mean, everyone's a little attracted to both, right?" He looked around the table for support only to find confused stares. "What, nobody's going to back me up?"

Amelia shook her head. "Sorry dude, I've only ever been attracted to men."

He turned to Ludwig, who nodded in agreement, then Gilbert who shrugged. "I, for one, am only into women."

"That's such a lie, Gil!" Elizabeta shot back, "What about that time with Roderich?" She pointed her thumb back towards the pianist on-stage.

"You were there too, so it didn't count!"

"Of course it still counts!"

" _Regardless_ ," Lovino interrupted, "The point I'm trying to make here is that it shouldn't matter if you were attracted to men too because either way you could fall in love with a woman, get married, start a family, whatever, and the family wouldn't even need to know. So what's the problem?"

Feliciano looked down again. "The problem is I didn't fall in love with a woman. I fell in love with a man."

Lovino was about to ask who, but Feliciano wordlessly reached his hand over to take Ludwig's and the words died in his throat. The blonde's face turned a deep red and the corners of his mouth upturned slightly.

"Oh," was all Lovino could say.

"We had to leave," Feliciano explained, "I knew we did, but I didn't want to go without seeing you again, so I used the rally as an excuse to get you to visit. Antonio was supposed to bring you here yesterday during the rally while Grandpa and everyone else was distracted. I was going to tell you about me and Ludwig and if you took well we were going to tell you where we were going and ask if you wanted to come with us. And if you didn't take take it well...well, I would at least get to say goodbye." Feliciano was crying now,and Ludwig had placed his free arm around his shoulder.

"The attack really fucked the plan up," Gilbert continued, "With Antonio gone, there was no one to tell you what the deal was so you never showed up."

"We didn't even know about it until about an hour or so after it happened," Elizabeta added, "We thought you were running late at first, but then Feli got worried so Gilbert and I went over to the park to see what was going on. When we got there, there were cops and paramedics everywhere. We asked around and found out about Antonio, but there was no sign of you, so we came back and started searching."

"How did you know I'd go to the casino?" Lovino asked.

"They didn't," Francis answered from behind the bar, "But Feliciano had all of us tell everyone we know to keep an eye out for you. I honestly didn't expect Monique to be the first to call. She gave me an earful, by the way, when you ran off. She said it was my fault for not telling her to tell you that Feliciano was looking for you, but _I_ figured that was obvious. My little sister's too shrewd for her own good sometimes. "

"Why did you run off, anyway, Lovi?" Feliciano asked.

"It was my fault," Amelia butted in, "I told him to because of this big misunderstanding on my part. Hi, I'm Amelia by the way." She held out her hand for him to shake, which he did eagerly.

"It's so nice to meet you," he said, friendly as ever, "Say, you wouldn't happen to be the same Amelia who was friends with Gil and Eliza, right?"

Amelia seemed surprised that he knew that, but cautiously nodded anyway. "Yeah, unless there's another Amelia."

"Oh, wow! They've told me so much about you! How did you get caught up in all of this?"

Amelia looked over at Lovino and shrugged. "You want to go ahead and explain?"

"I might as well," he sighed, "Be warned, though, it's a long story."

A few hours later, Lovino and Feliciano sat alone at the table, sipping their drinks and gazing lazily around the room. The saxophonist had long since taken her break and was currently chatting with Elizabeta and Amelia at a nearby table. Gilbert had taken her place on the stage with a flute that played surprisingly well despite the annoyed glares of Roderich the pianist who struggled to accompany him amidst his frequent improvisations. Ludwig stood nearby, ready to step in if his brother did anything too obnoxious.

"Hey," Lovino began softly in Italian, breaking the silence, "I'm sorry about leaving you all those years ago."

Feliciano flashed him a sad smile. "There's nothing to be sorry about. You tried to get me to come with you. I'm the one that refused."

"Yeah, but you were fifteen, you didn't know any better. I could have made you if I tried. I just...didn't. I was so afraid of what would happen to me that I didn't care enough about what would happen to you."

"For what it's worth, I don't regret staying behind."

"I should have stayed too. But I didn't. I left you to deal with all this alone."

"I wasn't alone." Feliciano smiled again, this time towards the stage where Ludwig was now scolding his older brother.

"What do you see in him?" Lovino asked, following his gaze, "I mean, no offence, but he doesn't seem like your type."

Feliciano laughed. "You wouldn't think he would be, right?" He sighed. "It's hard to tell, because he's kinda emotionally constipated, but he's a really sweet guy."

"I didn't peg him as...you know…"

"Gay?" He laughed again. "Why not?"

"He doesn't look gay, or act it, I guess."

"How does a gay man look and act?"

"I don't know, Feli! Girlier, maybe?"

"Are you gay, Lovi?"

"What? No!" Though their earlier conversation had him vaguely wondering if he was as straight as he thought. "Why would you think that?"

"You're wearing a woman's blouse."

"There's a reason for that!" Lovino sputtered, "I didn't have anything to wear so Amelia lent me her shirt. I had no other choice!"

"Amelia, hmm?" The brothers looked over at her table where she was cracking up over something someone said. "I like her a lot, I think you picked a good one."

"It's not like that, Feliciano."

"So you don't like her?"

"No, I do! Or, I mean, I like her as a person. She's smart and determined and...but that's not the point! I've only known her for a day, for god's sake!"

Feliciano smirked. "That never stopped you before."

"That was back when I was a kid! I don't mess around like that anymore. Besides, it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty sure the only reason she helped me to begin with is to get back at Ivan Braginski for what he did to her and her brother."

Feliciano hummed. "Do you really think Ivan did it? I mean, not like, he himself, but do you think he was the one behind it?"

"I don't know," Lovino answered truthfully, "Maybe. I'm sure he had a good reason to. To be honest, Feli, I don't really care at this point. Whatever Grandpa did to piss off the wrong criminal is his own damn fault. The less involved we are in all that bullshit, the better."

"Is it bad for me to say that I'm sad about it?"

"About what?"

"All of it." He waved his hands around vaguely. "Going behind his back, leaving, him getting killed. I know he wasn't a good man, and I know I hated living like that, but there's still a part of me that feels bad about it all ending like that. Is that weird?"

Lovino said nothing for a few moments. "No, I don't think so. I felt the same when when I left."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I don't think I noticed it at the time because I was too busy trying to prove I could make it on my own, but the first few months I was away was probably the loneliest I've ever felt. Despite everything that happened, I couldn't help but miss how things were sometimes. I mean, it's not like everything was all bad all the time. I gotta say, though, if there was one thing I missed more than anything, it was you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was way too quiet without you and your big mouth. I could actually hear myself think." Both brothers chuckled a bit, then settled down into a comfortable silence.

"Last call!" Francis yelled from the bar.

"It's getting late, huh?" Feliciano noted, "Ludwig and I were staying in Francis's guest room upstairs for the time being. I'm sure he'd let you use the couch tonight, he's pretty understanding about that kind of stuff. I mean, I guess there's no reason we can't go back to the house, but…"

"I don't want to go there either."

"Okay, good. I don't think I'm ready yet. I spent all this time working up the nerve to leave forever, you know? I had my bags packed and everything. I was prepared to never see it again. Now I guess I'll have to go and sort out all the legal stuff."

"Who says you have to do all that shit?"

"What?"

"You heard me, Feli. You just said you were already prepared to leave forever. Why does Grandpa dying have to change that?"

"What about the funeral?"

"I know you didn't go to the rally yesterday, but you had to have known Grandpa had the whole damn neighborhood eating out of the palm of his hand. Let one of them worry about it. With everything going on, nobody is going to give a shit about his two loser grandsons skipping town. Where were you planning on going anyway?"

"San Francisco. We heard it was better for people like us over there."

"Fucking fantastic! Get going as soon as you can and leave all this bullshit behind. Who knows? Maybe I'll move there too. I don't think Pizza Hut will be too lost without me."

"So you're not planning on going back home either?"

"As much as I'd love to never set foot in that hell-house again, I gotta swing by and pick up my suitcase. Speaking of which, I need to borrow some clothes so I can give Amelia her shirt back."

"Of course. You're going to walk her home though, right?"

"What for?"

"Lovi, it's the middle of the night and her apartment is halfway across the city! Don't you think she would like a little protection?"

"She's half a foot taller than me and carries around a weapon. What the hell am I protecting her from?"

Feliciano rolled his eyes. "I thought you were good at this sort of thing! It's not actually about protecting her, it's about showing you care! You do care, right?"

"About Amelia? Yeah I care, I just...I told you it wasn't like that."

Feliciano eyed him skeptically. "If you say so. Still, you should at least offer, just to be polite."

"Fine, just get off my back about it."

Lovino downed the rest of his drink and stood up, shooting an annoyed glare at Feliciano, who only grinned in response. He tried his best to look casual as he sauntered over to Amelia's table.

"Uh, hi," he said.

"Oh, hi!" she greeted back enthusiastically, "Lovino, I don't know if you've met Emma, she performs here a lot."

The saxophonist shook his hand "It's nice to meet you, Lovino, your brother has told me so much about you."

"Ha, yeah I'm sure he has. It's nice to meet you too." He coughed awkwardly. "So, um, Amelia, I didn't know if you were planning on heading home soon, but I can walk you back to your apartment. I mean, if you want, of course! It's fine if you don't though. No pressure." Lovino wondered why it suddenly felt so weird to talk to her and silently cursed his brother for getting into his head.

Thankfully, Amelia either missed or ignored his nervousness and smiled. "Yeah, I'd like that a lot, Lovino. Just give me a minute and we can head out."

"Uh, okay. Great."

Lovino walked back over to Feliciano, who was struggling to hold back his laughter.

"Wow, you've really lost your touch, Lovi. I haven't seen you flirt that terribly since high school."

Lovino would never admit it, but Feliciano was right. Working his way through college left him very little time to date, not to mention that it was a harder to impress people as a fast food worker than as the heir of the most powerful crime family in the city.

"I wasn't flirting," he snapped, "I was just doing what you told me to do."

"I was telling you to flirt."

"God, I forgot how annoying you were. I'll be back soon."

"Lovi, wait," Feliciano tucked a piece of paper into Lovino's breast pocket. "It's Francis's home number. If your plans change, call us."

His wink was met by a sharp glare.

The night was warm, but with a breeze that made it more bearable than the day. Lovino supposed that it was the same the night before, but he hadn't been paying attention then.

"It's weird," Amelia said, a few minutes after they left the bar, "That saxophone chick I was talking with, Emma? She's actually the...okay, so remember last night when I told you Matt and I got into trouble with Ivan because we'd been working with an independent dealer? Well, his name was Lars and Emma's his sister."

"Wow," Lovino mused, "Small world."

"Right? I've never actually met her before, but I guess Matt had a few times. He was more involved with the business with Lars than I was. She was the one who recognized me."

"How'd she do that if you never met her?"

"She said I looked familiar, so she asked my my name and connected the dots." Amelia laughed. "People used to say Matt and I looked alike all the time when we were younger. I never really saw it."

"I can see it."

"Yeah?"

"You have the same nose." Lovino used his finger to outline an exaggerated point over his own nose.

Amelia scoffed with false offence. "Well, you and Feliciano do too!" She mimed a huge hook over hers.

Lovino chuckled. "Yeah, we got it from our mom."

"I used to wonder what our parents looked like when I was a kid. Y'know, like if my mom had the same hair as me or if my dad had to wear glasses like Matt. I grew out of it, though. No reason to dwell on it, right?"

Lovino hummed noncommittally in response.

Amelia sighed. "I want to thank you, Lovino."

" _You_ want to thank _me_? For what?"

"For involving me in this whole thing."

"I've been feeling terrible about dragging you into this! I mean, I got you fired for god's sake!"

"That job was killing me, Lovino. That whole life was killing me. But you pulled me out of that, and that was the best thing anyone's done for me in a long time."

"It was?" Lovino turned to looked at Amelia, who was facing forward with distant, watery eyes.

"Yeah, it was. After Mattie died, I felt so alone. I didn't think I had anyone left that cared about me. And I was so angry at Ivan for taking him away and doing that to me. It was all I could focus on, getting revenge, and surviving for long enough to do it. But, god, look what that did to me! I'm a selfish, paranoid weirdo living in a booby-trapped apartment! I haven't had a genuine conversation with someone in over two years. But then you came and showed me that there were still people out there that gave a shit about me. I don't know why you didn't ditch me as soon as you had the chance, but I'm grateful that you didn't."

Lovino felt a deep ache in his chest that made him want to be uncharacteristically honest, both to himself and to Amelia.

"I thought you were going to ditch me! Especially when Tino basically confirmed that Ivan wasn't a part of this. And I was really really happy when you didn't because I really like having you around. I mean, fuck, you're probably the smartest person I've ever met! And you're so cool, with the jacket and the goddamn motorcycle, like I know it's a big fucking cliche, but still! And I know you think you messed things up when you told me to leave the casino with you yesterday but you had a really good reason to think that it wasn't safe and you could have left me there to get murdered but you didn't. You only knew me for a few minutes, and you tried to save my life. You might be a paranoid weirdo, but I don't think you're selfish. I just think you were scared. But hey, so am I! Who the fuck isn't, right?"

As soon as the words came tumbling out, Lovino regretted them. He jerked his head forward as he felt his cheeks heat up. He fully expected Amelia to be creeped out by his sudden candor, but instead she chuckled.

"Yeah, you're right. I was scared. But I don't think I'm as scared now as I was before."

Lovino faced her again and saw her smiling, the tears in her eyes almost gone. He smiled back.

They reached Amelia's apartment building sooner than Lovino expected, which was disappointing to say the least. The duo stopped outside the front door and faced each other.

"Alright, so...we're here," Lovino stated awkwardly.

"Yeah, we are," Amelia replied.

"Yeah."

Amelia ran her hand through her hair. "Hey, do you want to come in for a bit? Grab a cup of...uh, wait I don't have any coffee...a bowl of cereal maybe?"

Lovino's eyes widened significantly. "Yes! Or, uh, yeah, sure. I'd like that."

Amelia grinned. "Alright, great. Um, shall we?" She nodded towards the door.

"Yeah, okay."

Despite the positive outcome, Lovino's stubborn side was a bit annoyed that Feliciano had been right about him and Amelia. Luckily, Feliciano wasn't the gloating type. The thought of his brother, however, reminded Lovino of something he needed to do.

"Hey, Amelia!" he called out.  
She turned away from the door to look at him, slightly worried.

"You don't have a home phone, do you? I don't remember seeing one."

"Oh, uh, no. I don't."

"I need to call Feliciano and tell him I won't be home." He looked around for a pay phone and spotted one in front of the convenience store across the street. "Can you wait here a minute?"

"Hey, how about I go up to the apartment and disarm the security system? You can meet me up there when you're done. You remember the number right? 5-O?"

"Yeah, got it. Be right back."

Lovino half-jogged over to the pay phone, inserted some change, and dialed the number Feliciano gave him. The phone rang twice and a heavily French accented voice answered.

"'Allo?"

"Is this Francis?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"It's Lovino. Could you put my brother on the phone?"

"One moment."

After a minute of shuffling and muffled talking, Feliciano's cheery voice greeted him.

"Did you get lucky?" he asked, unsubtle as ever.

"Get your mind out of the gutter. We're just having a bowl of cereal."

"Cereal?"

"She doesn't have coffee. Anyway, I'm staying late."

"Are you staying late or staying over?"

"I don't know yet, just...I'll call again if I'm coming back tonight."

He heard a few whoops and catcalls along with Feliciano's giggling.

"Is everyone listening in on this?"

"No, of course not. It's, uh, actually getting hard to hear you. I think we're being disconnected."

"Feli, knock it off."

"Huh? What was that? Uh, good luck, Lovi! Bye!"

Lovino rolled his eyes at the dial tone, then hung up and headed back across the street. The building lobby just as ugly as it had been before. He waltzed past the empty doorman desk and took the elevator to the fifth floor. He walked down the hallway, noting the markings on the doors until he got to apartment 5-O and stopped dead in his tracks.

Something was wrong.

Instead of being closed like every other door in the hallway, apartment 5-O was slightly ajar. It was possible that Amelia had just entered the room, but she had gotten a pretty big head start on Lovino and it wasn't like her to forget to close it like that. Lovino cautiously approached the door.

"Amelia," he called, "Are you alright?"

No answer.

"Amelia?" he called again.

Lovino stepped up to the door and slowly pushed against it, careful not to get his body in range of her crossbows. To his surprise, the door hit something on the other side. Lovino pushed a little harder, and the obstructing object shifted a little, but not more than a few inches. He grimaced and knelt down to stick his arm through and feel around on the ground. At first, all he felt was carpeting, then his hand hit a different kind of fabric, softer and smoother, covering something large laying on the ground. Lovino ran his hand along the object until a shocking wetness made him jerk back his arm. The tips of his fingers were colored the bright red of blood.

Lovino leapt to his feet and pushed against the door with his shoulder. This time, he managed to open it enough to slip his whole body through, which he did with panicked urgency. On the floor blocking the entrance was the lifeless body of a man, five crossbow bolt sticking out of various parts of him. With a shaky hand, Lovino moved the shaggy brown hair that covered his face to confirm what he already knew. It was Toris.

"Oh, fuck," he said aloud, backing away from the corpse and spinning around, "Oh no. Fuck, fuck fuck. Amelia! Amelia, where are you?"

There was no answer. She was gone.


	11. Cold Fury

Lovino felt the panic rise up as he frantically scanned the room. Toris's body was the most obvious sign of a struggle, but the more Lovino looked the more things he noticed. Amelia's apartment had been cluttered before, but her piles of comic books and metal parts had at least been organized into somewhat neat piles. Now, junk littered the floor in a random mess, as if it had been thrown or knocked over.

A pained wimper sounded from behind the massive couch, catching Lovino's attention and forcing a hopeful gasp from his mouth.

"Amelia?" he called out again, scrambling around the couch.

It would be an understatement to call Lovino disappointed when he locked eyes with the figure splayed out on the ground. Eduard's legs were a mangled mess and his chest rapidly rose up and down with erratic breaths.

"Help me," he gasped.

"What happened?" Lovino asked angrily, ignoring the man's pain, "What did you do to her?"

"What did _I_ do to…? She broke my _fucking_ legs!"

Lovino marched over to Eduard's side and lifted his foot right over the man's shattered kneecap. "Tell me where she is or I swear to god…"

"No! Please, don't! I'll tell you! They took her! Dragged her out through there!" He pointed towards a window half-hidden by Amelia's massive bookshelf. It was wide open and led out onto a fire escape. Lovino rushed over and stuck his head out. The gated alley next to the building was deserted.

"Where are they taking her?"

"A warehouse! Not far from here, about four blocks north and six blocks east. It's a huge gray building, you can't miss it."

Lovino stepped away from the window and made a beeline for the door, only stopping to pull Amelia's baseball bat out from under a knocked over pile of comic books.

"Hey," Eduard called out after him, "You're going to help me, right? I told you what you wanted, you can't just leave me here!"

Lovino paused, his hand on the edge of the front door. "Let's see how good your directions are first," he answered, "Then I'll think about it."

The slam of the door cut off Eduard's shouts.

Lovino stood in front of the pay phone once again, tapping his foot impatiently as it rang.

"Hello?" a voice answered. It was Feliciano this time, not Francis.

"Feli, it's me."

"Lovi? What happened?"

"Ivan took Amelia."

Feliciano gasped. "What?"

"While I was gone, they came and...he kidnapped her, Feli! He dragged her off to some warehouse to...fuck, I need to do something!" Lovino knew he was causing a scene by shouting. He could hear the concerned whispers of pedestrians and fell the curious gaze of the young cashier taking a smoke break. At that moment, however, he couldn't care less about embarrassing himself.

"I have to go get her, Feli," he continued, "But I need help."

"Of course," Feliciano replied, his voice thick with worry, "Hold on." There was a shuffling over the phone and a female voice came on.

"Lovino? It's Elizabeta. Do you know which warehouse he took her to?"

"There's more than one? Uh, I don't know. It's six blocks east from where I am now, and I'm already on the southeast part of the city. It's a big gray building?"

"Okay, I know where that is. Just hang tight and we'll come and pick you up. Can you give me directions to where you are?"

"No, there's no time. Just meet me there."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, just go straight there. And bring as many people as you can."

"Okay...please be careful, Lovino."

Lovino hummed a noncommittal response and hung up the phone, then hurried off down the street. As he slipped through the crowds of pedestrians, he repeated the mantra _four blocks north, six blocks east_ over and over again, counting down each time he crossed a street and speeding up and he went along until he was almost sprinting. Soon, the massive gray building Eduard described loomed over Lovino, and he stopped to catch his breath.

A chain link fence surrounded the grounds of the building, though the excess of graffiti on the walls suggested it did little to keep people out. Still, as Lovino saw while making his way around to the back, the parking lot was empty save for a single black Volga with tinted windows. Along the rear side of the warehouse, a single door, propped open with a piece of rusted shrapnel, seemed to be the only way into the building. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Lovino slipped inside.

While the outside of the warehouse was sunbleached and covered with signs of abuse, the interior gave off a feeling of intense neglect. Rusty machinery was strewn among the rows upon rows of empty shelving. This sight, however, was ignored in favor of a far more noticeable aspect of the building. Almost immediately after entering, Lovino felt a sudden shiver run through his whole body as the freezing air hit him. The warehouse, it seemed, had once been used for cold storage and now, despite the abandonment, the refrigeration was turned on.

Most of the warehouse was cloaked in darkness, save for a single spot in the distance where several overhead lights were lit. Figuring that was his best bet, Lovino ran his one free hand over his opposite arm in a futile attempt to warm up as he crept quickly through the aisles towards the lighted section. Soon, he heard the faint sound of a voice that, as he approached, increased in volume and clarity until he could recognize is as high-pitched but masculine, with a thick Russian accent.

"You're only making this harder for yourself," the voice said, it's tone slightly exasperated, "You know it will only get worse, so why don't you just say something and end this? Just one word, and I'll stop."

There was a heavy silence for a moment, then the abrupt sound of running water followed by a gasping whine. Lovino quickened his pace as much as he could while staying quiet.

"I gave you everything Amelia, _everything!"_ the voice continued, now angry, "And you betrayed me. I did all that for you and all I ever wanted was you. All I wanted was you and your love and you couldn't even give me that."

Lovino poked his head around the corner of a shelf and had to stop himself from gasping in horror at what he saw. The hulking figure of whom he had to assume was Ivan Braginsky stood with his back towards Lovino, a tan long-coat hiding everything but the top of his platinum blonde head and a dripping hose clenched tightly in one of his gloved hands. In front of him was the violently shivering body of Amelia, soaking wet and hunched over in a plastic chair, the arms and legs of which her own were securely fastened to with a set of zip-ties. Her head was tilted up at Ivan, her mouth curved into a defiant scowl, but her eyes just starting to glaze over.

"You left me alone!" Ivan yelled at her, his voice steadily getting louder, "I have nothing now. _Nothing_!"

Amelia refused to acknowledge him, instead moving her head slightly as if she were bored. Lovino shook his slightly when she looked his way, urging her not to give away his position. She had no reaction, though he wasn't sure if it was because she understood what he was telling her or if she was simply too out of it to notice him, but either way it worked out in his favor. Ivan had begun shouting at her to speak again, and Lovino urgently tried to come up with a plan. Ivan was much bigger than him, that much was obvious, and his hose mixed with the freezing temperature would make for an effective weapon. Waiting for his backup to arrive would probably be the best idea, but with the way things were escalating, Lovino wasn't sure if he had that much time.

Suddenly, the sharp smack of Ivan's backhand across Amelia's face broke Lovino's focus. He stared at her, head held back at an awkward angle and a line of blood trickling out of her nose, and all Lovino could think to do was run, not away like he had done so many times before, but towards something.

With all thoughts of plans and good fighting tactics pushed out of his head by a intense wave of sheer anger, Lovino clenched his fists around the bat and charged forward, faster than he'd ever gone before. Ivan's back was still turned to him, and his screams were loud enough to drown out Lovino's footsteps. For a moment, it seemed that if nothing else, Lovino would have the element of surprise, but that hope was crushed when a new, feminine voice shrieked through the air.

"Vanya!"

Ivan turned at the sound, but just a moment too late to prevent Lovino from swinging the bat across his head with a sickening crack. The blow wasn't enough to knock him out, but it sent him stumbling sideways where his feet caught on the hose and slipped out from under him. He thudded heavily on the ground and struggled to get up again. Wasting no time, Lovino rushed to his side, raising up the bat to land another hit to the head. Before he could bring it down however, a third figure slammed into his side knocking his breath out and sending him sprawling onto the ground away from Ivan.

Laying on his side, one of Lovino's arms was pinned under his body which in turn was being straddled by a young woman with a dark blue coat and long platinum blonde hair. A flash of silver appeared in the corner of Lovino's eye and he held up his free arm just fast enough to grab the woman's wrist before she could plunge her switchblade into him. She shrieked and batted at him with her other hand, but with a shout of his own, Lovino twisted his body and threw her off of him. From where he laid, Lovino could see Ivan pushing himself onto his knees and looking around frantically until he found what he was looking for. Lovino followed his gaze to see the bat, still rolling slightly from when the woman's tackle had knocked it out of his hands. Flicking his eyes back to Ivan for a split second, Lovino scrambled to his feet and lunged towards the weapon, just a hair behind the other man.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang through the air and both men spun around, distracted from their goal. To Lovino's shock, less than a foot behind him, the body of the woman crumpled to the ground, her arm falling from where it had held up her knife ready to stab him.

"Natalya!" Ivan screamed, but his anguished cry was cut short by another gunshot.

Over the ringing in his ears, Lovino registered the sound of calm footsteps and looked up to see a figure walking into the light, smoking gun lowering to his side.

"Hello, Mr. Vargas," greeted Wang Yao, "It's so nice to see you again."


	12. The Deal

Lovino nearly collapsed from relief as Wang stepped out of the shadows. Behind him, four more figures followed, each cautiously holding their guns up until they it was clear there was no more threat. Lovino recognized them as the two women from Wang's restaurant, Kiku, and the bespectacled man who had been sitting with him.

"How did you know to come?" Lovino asked, slightly out of breath.

"I've been on the lookout for Ivan," Wang explained, "When I learned what he was up to, I came as fast as I could. We would have been here earlier, but I thought it would be best to come with backup just in case I was outnumbered. I can see you aren't a fan of that particular tactic, Mr. Vargas. A bold decision, but rather stupid."

Normally, Lovino would object to the insult, but Wang was both right and had just saved his life, so he let it slide. "Yeah," he agreed with a winded chuckle, "I can get a little carried away when it comes to people I care about."

He glanced at Amelia, who he'd momentarily forgotten about during the fight, and jolted when he realized she was still strapped to the chair and violently shivering. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who noticed as Kiku, with an approving nod from Wang, rushed over and started tugging fruitlessly on the zip-ties around her wrists. Lovino bent down to pick up Natalya's dropped knife and took Kiku's place kneeling at her feet, the other man nodding and returning back to Wang's side.

"Hey, V-vin," Amelia greeted, her voice barely above a whisper, "You hungry?"

Lovino stopped cutting at the binding on the wrist and looked up at her face, half expecting Amelia to be delirious. Instead, her eyes were clear as she looked at him instistantly. "Am I hungry? What are you talking about?"

"I'm s-starved. After this is over, I want to t-take you to one of my favorite d-diners. They say it's the b-best in the state, but _I_ think it c-could be the best in the nation." Her tone was casual, but her message was not lost on Lovino.

"Well, Amy, I know how much you like diners," he replied, trying to urge her to continue her tactic, "But, honestly, I'm in more of a McDonald's mood."

She smiled. "That's fine with me t-too. Anywhere but that one place, the one you w-went to right before the last t-time you visited me at work. I know you like th-them, but I have a friend in the business and he s-said not to trust them. Apparently the s-service sucks."

Lovino caught himself before his eyes widened at the information, instead cutting through the last of Amelia's restraints and pulling her close in a desperate attempt to warm her shaking body. He turned back to Wang, who was studying them curiously. "She's incoherent," Lovino cried out, "I need to get her out of here."  
"Yes, of course," Wang replied, "Do you have a safehouse Mr. Vargas? Have you found your brother yet?"

It was obvious that Wang was fishing for information, and if Amelia hadn't given Lovino a heads up, he might have fallen for it. Instead, he opted to play dumb.

"No, I haven't," he lied.

"So you're telling me you didn't call your brother less than half an hour ago on a pay phone in front of a convenience store across the street from Amelia Williams' apartment building?"

Shit.

"I have to compliment you, Mr. Vargas, for being a very good liar. Unfortunately, you seem to have forgotten that I have eyes all around the city." Wang let out a chuckle, then glared fiercely, cocking his gun and aiming it straight at Lovino, who flinched and squeezed Amelia tighter. "Now, I will ask you one more time, where is you brother?"

"Right here." A loud click reverberated throughout the room calling everyone's attention to its source. Feliciano walked out from aisle Wang had emerged from, a handgun pointed at the older man. Ludwig, Gilbert, and Elizabeta joined him, each choosing a member of Wang's entourage to aim their own guns at and all of them wearing heavy jackets in anticipation for the cold. Gilbert crept cautiously around to where Lovino and Amelia knelt on the floor and tossed them a spare parka, which Lovino wrapped tightly around the both of them.

"Drop your weapon," Feliciano ordered shakily, "or I'll shoot."

Wang eyed him from over his shoulder, but didn't move. "I don't think I will. You see, Mr. Vargas, or Feliciano, I suppose, so we don't confuse you and your brother, your grandfather told me all about you. You're no killer. You don't have a violent bone in your body."

As much as Lovino hated to admit it at the moment, Wang was right. Feliciano was trying his best to appear confident, but his jaw was clenched and his body trembled. Still, as fearful as he seemed, Lovino knew all too well what fear could drive someone to do.

"Besides," Wang continued, "You may have us outmanned, but we have you outgunned. Even if you did shoot me, I don't intend to go without taking your bother with me. Do you want me dead more than you want your brother alive?"

"You're the one who had them killed, aren't you?" Feliciano accused, "Why did you do it? I thought you were allies."

"I thought so too," he answered, "But your grandfather decided to break the terms of our agreement. It's a rather long and boring story to tell, actually."

"Humor us," Lovino said through gritted teeth.

Wang shrugged. "I suppose it's the least I can do. It all started because of him." Wang nodded towards Ivan's lifeless body. "A few years ago, I was in an alliance with his syndicate, back when it was headed by someone else, and the terms were similar to the ones I had with your grandfather, where we agreed to work together as long as our areas of business remained distinct. When Braginsky took over, he began investing in narcotics and our alliance ended. Ever since we've been on bad terms. As I'm sure you know, Braginsky was on your grandfather's bad side as well, which made it prudent for me to propose a new alliance. Unfortunately, your grandfather made the same mistake as Braginsky and started selling drugs on the side."

"That's it?" Lovino asked, baffled, "He sold a few drugs and you had everyone killed for it?"

"You have to understand, Mr. Vargas, this wasn't personal. I did it to protect my business. I don't need competitors flooding the market and driving down my prices."

That's when it clicked for Lovino. Wang's tone wasn't angry or even annoyed, it was just matter-of-fact. He wasn't lying when he said it was just business. He didn't kill them for revenge or honor, just because they got in the way of making a profit. It was at that point that Lovino realized that he had an actual chance of surviving this ordeal because, as bad as he was at dealing with personal matters, he went to college, dammit, and he didn't spend four years slaving away at a shitty fast food joint for a BBA just to die because of a fucking business dispute.

"Mr. Wang," Lovino said slowly, "What if I told you that we could settle this dispute in a way that would benefit both of us, you even more so than if you were to kill us?"

"I'd be skeptical," he answered, "But I'm listening."

"From what I gathered, you had no idea who I was before yesterday, is that correct?"

"It is…"

"Yes, well that's not exactly unexpected. I told you yesterday that wmy grandfather and I weren't on good terms. By that I meant that we hadn't spoken in around five years. You see, I removed myself from my grandfather's business, and from this city, years ago, with no intention to return."

"But you did return," Wang pointed out.

"Yes, I did, but not for my grandfather. I was asked to come back to the city by my brother so I could help him with his own move. He was planning on leaving the city as well, this weekend actually."

"You expect me to believe this move just so happened to occur on the same weekend as the attack I've been planning for weeks?"

"It's a far-fetched coincidence, I'll give you that, but the point I'm trying to make still stands."

"And what point is that?"

"My brother and I only want two things, Wang. First, and I'm sure this is something everyone in this room can sympathize with, we'd like to not die. Speaking of which, is there any way we could continue this conversation with the guns down. I usually find it better to have discussions in a low-stress environment."

"Tell me the other thing you want, and I'll think about it."

Lovino rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. The second thing we want is a chance to get out of town and leave all of this behind us. And I mean _all_ of this. No moving our operations, or trying to control things from afar, just straight abandonment."

"And how would that benefit _me,_ Mr. Vargas?"

"I get it, Wang, you don't want any loose ends, and leaving the two sole heirs of your enemy's operations alive makes for a pretty big loose end. But regardless of whether or not you let us live, the competition will be removed, because we plan on leaving anyway. _However,_ if you let us live, we will personally assure that all syndicate operations underneath my grandfather will be transferred to you. In that case, you will not only be rid of your competition, you will gain a significant amount of additional enterprises to add to your repertoire."

Wang raised his eyebrows and lowered his gun. "And just how do you plan on performing this transferral? You know as well as I do that none of these operations are legitimate. We would be working outside of the law, with no access to lawyers and no way to enforce contracts."

"Simple, Mr. Wang. We both use our restaurants as fronts for our more unsavory business, using them as fronts for this deal isn't that far of a stretch."

"What exactly are you proposing."  
"I'm willing to sell you our restaurant, and all of our other businesses along with it, though the latter won't appear on any official documentation. I _would_ offer it for free, but something tells me that that would garner more suspicion than necessary, plus it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of cash to help us establish ourselves somewhere else. I _will_ offer you an extremely discounted price, though, as I have no real interest in making a profit here."

"So you don't think that a Chinese restaurateur suddenly buying an Italian bistro would garner suspicion?"

"Perhaps, but it would be perfectly legal, so nothing could be done about it." Lovino chuckled. "You could tell people you're trying your hand at fusion cuisine."

Wang's frown deepened. "And what about the remaining members of your grandfather's syndicate? You and your brother may not be feeling vengeful, but can you say the same for everyone else?"

"Well, first of all, you killed off like ninety percent of the family. Second of all, the only people that even know you were behind it are _in this room right now._ I had no idea before you showed up, and I doubt the few knuckle-headed thugs you left alive are going to be able to piece it together, especially with us advocating on your behalf."

"Forgive me for being skeptical, Mr. Vargas, but I was under the impression that you no longer had standing within your grandfather's syndicate. What makes you think you have the authority to pull this off?"

"Oh, I _definitely_ don't have the authority to pull this off. I'm lucky if my grandfather even mentioned me in his will. _Feliciano,_ on the other hand...well, I can admit he's more of a people person than me. He'd be more than willing to sign whatever documents are necessary and convince whoever needs a reason to go along with this. Isn't that right, Feli?"

Feliciano, eyes wide with shock and weapon having already been lowered, nodded vigorously. "Of course! If you agree, I mean. Do you...agree?"

Wang furrowed his brows and pursed his lips. "Your offer is very tempting, Mr. Vargas. I think I'd like to take you up on it, providing we can find a reasonable settlement to agree upon." With a wave of his hand, all of his associates lowered and put away their guns.

Lovino let out a deep sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Wang. Now, let's get out of here before we freeze our asses off."


	13. Brothers

Lovino let out a heavy sigh as he stuffed the last of his belongings into his suitcase, relieved that he could see the end of what may have been the longest weekend of his life.

After Wang agreed to his proposal, the group in the warehouse split into two parties. The first, consisting of Amelia, Gilbert, and Elizabeta, left for the former's apartment to take care of the mess that had been left in the wake of Ivan's intrusion. Lovino stressed Eduard's precarious condition and willingness to assist in locating Amelia in the hopes that it would convince the three to take it easy on him. Gilbert and Elizabeta's angry expressions had him worried, but Amelia promised they wouldn't rough him up. At least not _too_ much, which was fine by Lovino.

Meanwhile, Lovino, Feliciano, and Ludwig were escorted back to their townhouse by Wang and his entourage, a trip that was rather cramped and awkward due to the stuffing of eight people into a car built for five. Nonetheless, they made it to their destination soon enough and the brothers immediately got to work rifling through their grandfather's personal documents. An hour later, they had gathered everything they needed for the transaction, save for the legal paperwork that needed to be filed at the county registrar office. As it was unlikely for any government building to be open in the middle of the night, it was decided that the transfer would take place the next day. To assure that the brothers wouldn't flee in the meantime, Wang insisted on holding onto the relevant files, and the brothers agreed wholeheartedly.

Now, Lovino was gathering the rest of his luggage in preparation for his semi-permanent departure. Before leaving the warehouse, he had agreed to stay with Feliciano and Ludwig in Francis's apartment along with Amelia, who similarly had reasons not to linger in her defaced home. After zipping up his suitcase, Lovino sat down on the beige covers of what used to be his bed and placed his head in his hands with another heavy sigh. Peeking through his fingers, Lovino caught sight of a familiar book placed conspicuously on top of the otherwise scarcely decorated dresser. He stood up grabbed to leatherbound photo album and returned to his place on the bed. Lovino suspected the album's awkward placing to be Feliciano's doing, perhaps in the hopes of stirring up good memories and making it easier to convince him to leave with them. Lovino shook his head slightly at the thought and opened the book somewhere in the middle.

On one side, there was a family photo of the brothers and their parents. Feliciano was just a baby being held in his seated mother's arms, his toothless mouth opened in a laugh. Next to them sat their father with Lovino, just a toddler, perched on his lap, a grimace-like smile awkwardly stretched across his face. Lovino hummed in thought. He didn't remember taking that photo, just as he didn't remember most of his life before his parents died. He had never been sure how to feel about that.

The photo on the opposite page,displaying three young boys standing together, was one he remembered quite well, however, as it was the first picture he took after coming to America. Lovino looked at himself on the far right of the photograph, arms crossed and with an annoyed scowl, slightly hunched due to his shorter brother's arm slung around his shoulder. Feliciano stood in the middle, grinning so hard his eyes were almost scrunched shut. His other arm was wrapped around a little blond boy who, after a second, Lovino realized was Ludwig. He was smiling for the camera as well, albeit close-lipped and awkward, but his eyes were directed towards Feli.

At that moment, a soft knock on the doorframe made Lovino jump. He turned to see, by sheer coincidence, Ludwig standing just outside the room.

"Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to...uh...startle you."

"No, it's okay," Lovino replied with a kind smile. He really needed more practice being kind, and there seemed to be few better to start that with than the man who was, for all intents and purposes, his new brother-in-law.

"Feliciano sent me up here to check on you."

"Oh did he?" Lovino smirked. "Is he down there chatting up Wang and his crew?"

Ludwig said nothing, but his facial expression told Lovino everything he needed to know.

He laughed just a little bitterly. "I don't know how he can do it. Just shake all that shit off like it's not big deal. He's always been like that. Just so...I don't know. Forgiving?"

Ludwig stared at him uneasily.

"It's not always a bad thing, I suppose. I mean, hell, he sure seems a lot happier for it."

Lovino could feel the tension in the room. So much for trying to be friendly.

"Hey, come over here for a second," he said, gesturing towards the nervous man, "I promise it won't be long. I just want to show you something."

Ludwig glanced over his shoulder but complied, shambling over to the edge of the bed. Lovino tilted the photo album in his lap and pointed to the picture of the three of them as children. "You remember when we took this?"

Ludwig nodded and a smile ghosted onto his face. "That was the first time I met you." Lovino looked at him expectantly, silently urging him to go on. "My father told me beforehand that Mr. Vargas's grandsons were coming to live with him. He said that their parents died and they had to leave home and that they would be very upset. I remember thinking that you were acting exactly the right way, but Feliciano was so friendly and upbeat and I think it scared me a little." He chuckled. "I asked my father why he was acting weird and he told me that some people just deal with things differently."

It was then that Lovino realized that, in the midst of everything, he had forgotten that Ludwig had also lost someone in the ordeal.

"I'm very sorry about your father," he said softly.

"Thank you," Ludwig answered. "We weren't very close, though. We used to be, when I was a child, but a lot of things happened since then."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. He's the main reason I convinced Feliciano to leave with me."

"Really?" Lovino raised his eyebrows.  
"When Feliciano and I started seeing each other in, you know, _that way_ , we tried to keep our relationship under wraps, for safety reasons. But there were more than a few close calls with my father almost finding us out. If he had, he would have immediately told the family, and we would have been killed."

"You really think he would have done that to you?"

"Without question."

Lovino flicked his eyes up to Ludwig's frowning face, then back down to the album. "Well, I guess I should thank you then, for convincing Feli to get out when I couldn't."

"He regrets that, you know."

"What?"

"Not leaving when you did. He regrets it."

"He told me he didn't."

"He lied. He's good at that. And you have it all wrong, Lovino. He doesn't brush off all the trauma, he just pushes it deep down and ignores it."

"Are you his boyfriend or his therapist?"

"I'm just repeating what he's told me. He's the one who insisted on telling you about the plan, by the way. He wanted to make up for not going the first time by inviting you to come with us the second time. To be honest, I'm really relieved you took it so well. If you hadn't, it would have destroyed Feliciano. He really looks up to you, you know? He talks about you all the time."

Lovino smiled. "He talks about you too. How much he loves you."

Ludwig's face turned a bright red and he coughed awkwardly. "Yes, well I care a lot about him too. So you, uh, don't need to worry about that...from me."

"What, do you expect me to give you a lecture on how to treat my little brother?" Lovino laughed. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not exactly intimidating. I mean, what am I going to do, talk you into buying my house?"

"I figured you would aim for my kneecaps."

"Holy shit, was that a joke?"

Ludwig smirked, then joined Lovino in dissolving into laughter.

When Lovino returned to Francis's bar, with Feliciano and Ludwig in tow, he was excited to see the car the car Amelia had used parked in the street, though he did his best to keep a neutral expression to avoid his brother's teasing. Walking down into the main room, however, they were met with an interesting sight. The bar was empty save for the three other members of their original party, Francis, and the saxophonist Lovino had met earlier, whose name he was pretty sure was Emma. Amelia and Emma were in the back corner of the room near the bar, deep in a hushed conversation, while the others sat at a table, watching with rapt attention.

"Hey there," Feliciano greeted the three, "Did everything go alright?"

"Hi Feli," Elizabeta responded with a smile, "Yeah, we took care of it. As best we could at least. I'll tell you about it later."

"What's going on with them?" Lovino asked, nodding towards the other two. Now Emma was speaking rapidly while Amelia stared at her wide-eyed, her hand held over her mouth.

"Don't know," Gilbert answered, "We got here a few minutes ago and Emma rushed over to talk to her privately."

"She found out something important," Francis interjected, "But she told me that Amelia should know first."

Lovino furrowed his eyebrows as he watched Emma pull out a scrap of paper from her pocket and thrust it into Amelia's hands. Amelia nodded vigorously as she stumbled over to the phone on the wall behind the bar. Meanwhile, Emma made her way towards the crowd of confused spectators.

"What happened?" Feliciano asked.

"Ah, I'm so glad to see you three," she said brightly, "You came just in time."

"Just in time for what?" Lovino asked. He glanced over at Amelia who was dialing the phone with shaking hands. "Is she okay?"

"Okay, so I don't know if Amelia told you all, but my brother and her brother were friends. So, earlier, we were talking and she told me that her brother was killed, and it really shocked me, I mean, he seemed like a really nice guy, you know? But anyway, later, I called Lars and mentioned it and he was really confused because it turns out…"

She trailed off as a loud choked gasp tore through the air. Everyone in the bar turned their attention to Amelia, who cradled the phone against her face as tears streamed down her cheeks. The room was silent and filled with tension as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Mattie?"


	14. Forward

The next day, Lovino and Amelia stood side by side on a train platform, silently staring at the bare tracks that spread in front of them. Around them, the crowd shifted as travelers hurried to reach their destinations on time, their noise battling with that of the trains themselves, arriving and departing like clockwork. Pursing his lips, Lovino snuck a glance at Amelia's face, frowning when he saw her blank expression.

The night before, she had been smiling through tears of joy as they all planned what would happen next, which of course included a meetup arranged as soon as possible. As soon as possible would turn out to be roughly sixteen hours later, when the first train to the city would arrive. In her excitement, she had asked Lovino to accompany her to the station, only to backtrack immediately and apologize when she remembered that he already had plans. Perhaps sensing their disappointment, Francis offered to step in for Lovino during the deal, having gone through the process before when he bought his bar. When everything was done and settled, it took them everything they could to force themselves to go to sleep.

Now though, it was as if a switch was flipped. The enthusiasm that had followed Amelia up until they reached the station was now gone, replaced by emptiness.

"Hey," Lovino said quietly, "Are you alright?"

"Everything is different now," she answered abruptly.

"Well, yeah," he chuckled, "I would hope so."

"No, I don't mean in a good way."

"What are you talking about? Matthew's alive. Why would that be bad?"

"No, not that! It's just…" Amelia raised her hands and rubbed them across her face. "Ever since...what happened… everything I did was based on me thinking Matt was dead. _Everything,_ Lovino. I… I was so angry. All I wanted to do was make them pay for what they did to us. And I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record here, because I _know_ I said all this yesterday, but so much has happened since then and it's all different now. It's all _worse_ now. And it all happened right after I promised myself I would let go of all the anger." She laughed bitterly. "I say I'm going to go and leave all the hate behind, then five minutes later I kill a guy."

" _That's_ what this is about?"

"Of course that's what this is about, Lovino! I killed a man. And not just any man, I killed a friend."

"He was trying to kill you!"

Amelia scoffed. "He didn't...listen, I can tell you word for word what probably went down yesterday. Either Ivan or Natalia ran across Raivis, and since he's a shit liar, they knew something was up and asked him. He spilled immediately and they decided to stake us out. Toris probably tried to get out of it, and Ivan threatened to kill Natalia if he didn't comply."

"Ivan would really kill his own sister?"

"Of course not. That whole thing started off as her idea! But they know that Toris doesn't have the guts to call his bluff, so he goes along with whatever they say."

"I can't see how that's any better. He still broke in, and it's not like he was doing it to say hello. Isn't that why you made the trap to begin with? For protection?"

"The trap wasn't meant for Toris. It was meant for...I don't know, someone else. Ivan, maybe? The point is, I made it when I was at a really bad place and wanted to hurt the people that hurt me. And you came along and helped bring me out of that, and I was ready to disarm it for good, but then yesterday, I was waiting for you to come up and there was a knock on the door and I thought it was you so I called out your name, but you didn't answer and I got so scared and I… I rearmed it." Amelia was crying now. "And it wasn't you. But it wasn't Ivan, either. It was Toris, and he was a good guy. Not the best, but he didn't deserve to go like that. He didn't deserve what I did to him."

Lovino suddenly felt very guilty for not having talked to her sooner about this. The night before, in the warehouse, he had been so distracted by what was happening with Wang that he didn't even check to see if she was okay.

"It's alright," he tried to reassure, "You didn't do anything wrong. You were just protecting yourself."

"That's easy for you to say," she shot back, "You've never killed anyone."

A flash of anger ran through Lovino. "How do you know I've never killed anyone?"

"I know you almost did, but you ended up not doing it."

"Who told you that?"

"Elizabeta. She found out from Gilbert, who found out from Ludwig, who overheard your grandfather complaining to his dad. Feliciano knows too. It's not a secret."

It was like being punched in the stomach. Lovino had always hoped to be able to forget that night in the basement. He knew that wouldn't be fair to Sadiq, but at that point, it was moot.

"Hey," Amelia continued softly, her voice full of regret, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up…"

"How much do you know?" he asked quietly.

"That's all. I swear. I don't know any details. And you don't have to…"

"I didn't kill him, but it's my fault he died. He went to the police after I…"

"After you what?" Amelia winced. "I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that either."

"I cut off his finger."

"What? Really?" Amelia glanced down at her own missing digits, then balled her hand into a fist. "Did he deserve it?"

"No," Lovino answered truthfully, "Not at all. I destroyed his store and he called me a coward, so I mutilated him. It's the worst thing I've ever done."

"Wow... Well, thanks for telling me. Why, uh, why did you tell me."

"I don't know. To prove a point, maybe. That I'm not above you."

"You don't think killing someone is worse than cutting off their finger?"

"If you ignore context, maybe. But I'd say that killing someone who is trying to kidnap you is less bad than torturing someone who called you a mean name."

"Maybe we can agree that it's not a contest, then. That we're just two people who have done horrible things. I guess the question is, where are we supposed to go from there?"

"Forward, I suppose. It's not like we can go anywhere else. People don't come back from the dead, after all. Except Matthew."

Amelia chuckled. "Yeah, I guess." She frowned again. "Oh, god. What is he going to think of me now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not the same person I was back then."

"I'm sure he's not the same person he was back then either. Is that a problem for you?"

"Of course not, he's my brother. He could kick a puppy and I'd stick with him. He wouldn't though, because he's like the nicest person ever."

"Well, you're his sister. And you know, I have had a bit of experience dealing with morally sound siblings and I can say that they tend to be forgiving."

Amelia smiled, but still looked uneasy.

"You wish you had known he was alive sooner?" It was only half a question.

She nodded. "I wish that a lot of things had been different. But not all of them."

Lovino raised his eyebrows.

"Things were bad for me for a while, but then you came along and things were better for a bit, then _way_ worse, then way, way better. If our circumstances were different, we never would have met, and it wouldn't have really mattered, but our circumstances _aren't_ different and with all things considered, I'm really glad I met you Lovino."

It was as if she had put everything he was feeling into words. Lovino smiled cheekily, and resolved to turn on the charm. "You know it's really not fair."

"What's not fair?"

"Well, I mean, you're a math genius, an amazing mechanic, and incredibly attractive. It just doesn't seem fair that on top of all that, you also have such a lovely way with words."

Amelia's face was bright red. "Stop it," she said from behind her hand.

"I'm serious," he continued, "And it's really daunting, because you find yourself thinking _with all that, what can I bring to the table?_ "

Amelia broke out into a grin, then, without warning, ducked down and planted a firm kiss on Lovino's cheek. "I think you bring plenty," she said softly, still close to his face.

At that point, it was Lovino's turn to blush.

They waited another fifteen minutes for the train to arrive, and by that time, Amelia was almost jumping with anticipation. The passengers began filing out of the doors and the duo scanned the crowd for Matthew's familiar face.

Lovino ended up spotting him first. Matthew was easily recognizable from the picture he had seen, though there were a few noticeable differences. He was taller, for one, but less lanky than he had been as a teenager. He was wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt, but it was still clear that he had a bit of muscle underneath. He still wore glasses, but the nose they were perched on was now a bit crooked, like it had been broken and never quite fixed correctly. Still, it was undeniably Matthew, so Lovino nudged Amelia and pointed at her brother, who was wildly searching for her in turn.

She gasped audibly when she saw him, then immediately rushed towards him, trying her best to weave through the crowd. Lovino followed close behind, a grin spreading across his face. Finally, they came to a clearing, not ten feet away from where Matthew stood.

"Mattie!" Amelia yelled out.

"Mia?" he called back, his eyes widening.

They both ran forward and crashed into each other in the middle, hugging tightly. Lovino stopped a couple of feet away, out of breath and wishing he was in better shape.

Amelia was saying something, but it was impossible to hear what it was through her sobs and the fact that her face was buried in Matthew's shoulder.

"Are you crying, Mia?" he asked gently.

She nodded.

"Don't cry," he told her, "You look super ugly when you cry."

Amelia leaned back to glare at him. "Shut the fuck up!" she cried, punching his chest half-heartedly. Matthew let go of her to laugh heavily. A moment later, Amelia joined him and the twins stood together cackling loudly as the crowd moved around them. At any other time, Lovino might have told them to knock it off, but this was important enough to be an exception. Eventually, though, they did calm down, and Matthew noticed Lovino standing off to the side.

"Oh, gosh I'm so sorry, that was so rude of us. Mia, is this that guy you were telling me about on the phone?"

"Oh my god, yes." Already on a high from learning that Amelia had mentioned him, Lovino almost had a heart attack when she grabbed his hand to pull him closer, which was honestly ridiculous because he was a grown fucking man who had been in intimate relationships before and not a fourteen year old with a crush. "Matt, this is Lovino. Lovino, this is my brother."

"It's so nice to meet you," Matthew said, sticking his hand out for a shake. Lovino took it, slightly embarrassed over how much it dwarfed his own. Matthew held firmly, though not nearly enough for it to be considered tight, though Lovino could guess that wasn't because he didn't have the strength to crush Lovino's hand if he wanted to, which was probably a good sign. It was actually really nice, the handshake, but in a moment it was going to stop being nice because Lovino was way overthinking the concept of shaking hands and it distracted him from remembering how long a handshake could go on before it got awkward. Lovino let go abruptly, and let his arm fall down to his side.

"It's nice to meet you too," he said, as normally as he could.

Thankfully, Matthew either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge the weird behavior and gave the most genuine smile Lovino had ever seen. Lovino thought back to what Amelia had said about her brother and found himself agreeing that, if the situation arised, Lovino would gladly buy really good cocaine from Matthew.

As it turned out, however, Matthew was no longer in the cocaine-selling business, a fact that Lovino learned not too long after while the trio talked over dinner at a nearby diner. The siblings were adamant on finding out exactly what happened to each other in the time they were apart. Amelia went first, relaying everything that had happened, from when she had escaped to when she had called him the night before. Matthew was floored by the story, but all of his questions were deflected by Amelia until he agreed to tell his own.

"It started off the same way as what happened to you," he told them, "but I have to admit it's not nearly as interesting. That night, when Ivan...y'know...the last thing I remember was seeing you tied up before I passed out. I don't really know exactly what happened then, but when I woke up, I was wrapped in a bunch of blankets in the back of this van. My glasses were gone, so I couldn't really see anything at first, but I could tell we were moving so I started shouting. Then we pulled over and the driver was there and she was telling me I had to be quiet and she was going to help me and I realized it was Yekaterina."

Amelia gasped. "Really?"

"Who's that?" Lovino asked, though the name sounded vaguely familiar.

"She's Ivan's other sister. Not crazy, like Natalia. I heard she left the syndicate."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she did. She was going on about how what Ivan did was horrible and she shouldn't have let things get so bad. I kept asking about you and she told me she was sorry but she could only manage to save one of us." Matthew suddenly looked very close to breaking down. "I spent so long wondering why it was me. Why _I_ was the one who got to live when it was all my fault to begin with. I'm so sorry, Mia, for dragging you into all of that. I knew things would go badly if anyone found out I was going third-party. I _knew_ it, and I still did it because I thought we wouldn't get caught and I was so _stupid_ and…"

"Mattie," she cut him off, "None of this was your fault. Not even close. And you know what, this whole time I've been dealing with this, it didn't even occur to me _once_ to blame you. Now please, continue."

Matthew removed his glasses to wipe his eyes. "Yekaterina dropped me off at a hospital the next town over. She told me to leave the city and never come back, so I did. I started off going town to town doing odd jobs until I got started working for this lumber mill up north about a year and a half ago. I've been there ever since. Until I got a call from Lars asking me why his sister thought I was dead."

"So you stayed in touch with Lars that whole time."

"I didn't know anyone else that wasn't working for Ivan. I mean, I can't even believe you stayed in the city for this long. What were you thinking?"

Amelia looked guiltily down at her hands. "I don't know, Matt. That maybe someday I could make him pay for what he did to you?"

"So, what? You put yourself in danger for some revenge fantasy?"

"I had nothing else to live for, Matthew! My only family was dead and my only friends killed him!"

"That's so stupid…"

"No! What's stupid is blaming yourself for all of this! I mean, there were so many different things that led up to this, Matt. We could blame our parents for abandoning us, or Arthur for neglecting us, or even Kiku, for introducing us. But you know who I blamed? The man I saw torturing you until you stopped moving!"

As their conversation got more heated, Lovino tried his best to shrink down and focus on the greasy hamburger in front of him.

"It wouldn't have brought me back, you know," Matthew said softly, but tensely.

"Yes, I _know_ that, Matt. I figured it out all by myself." She shot a quick glance at Lovino. "Okay, not _all_ by myself, but the point is, I gave up my little 'revenge fantasy' because I knew that you wouldn't have wanted it."

"You...you did?"

"Yes, Mattie. It just so happened that Ivan managed to get in the way of Wang Yao's cute little plot to take over the city. Speaking of which," she turned to Lovino, "I think I understand why you were so upset yesterday at Tino's. Like, I watched Ivan get shot and I thought it would feel great but instead it was just kinda gross. It sure as hell wasn't fulfilling. And yeah, Mattie, if you had been dead, it wouldn't have brought you back."

"Yeah, well moping around in a lumber mill sure wouldn't have brought you back."

"Oh yeah, you know, I've been meaning to ask, why a lumber mill? You grew up living in apartments, for god's sake!"

"To be honest, it kinda sucks. It's really hard work and nobody talks to me. I think I just did it to get as far away from the city life as I could."

Amelia reached across the table and poked his chest. "Well, you're all beefy now, so that's weird."

"I also did it on the off chance that you were alive so I could finally beat you at arm wrestling."

Amelia laughed. "That's such a fucking lie. And there's no way you could beat me at arm wrestling, lumberjack muscles or not."

"Wanna bet?"

"Hell yeah."

He could not beat her at arm wrestling. Still, Lovino found it immensely fun to watch him try, especially since it seemed to signal the end of their fight. They drifted onto different subjects, primarily things that had happened over the past couple of years. Eventually, though, they were forced to come around to the topic they had been avoiding.

"So, Lovino" Matthew said, poking at the last few bits of his pancakes, "What are you planning on doing now?"

"Well I only took five days off of work, so I'm catching my flight in a couple days."

Amelia looked as disappointed as he felt. "And after that?" she asked.

"I don't really know. The whole reason I left the city was to get away from the family, but that's kind of moot at this point, isn't it?" The truth was, after everything that had changed in the past couple of days, going back alone to his dead-end job seemed like the worst outcome possible.

"Have you thought about going to San Francisco with Feliciano and Ludwig?"

"Yeah, a bit, but what would I do there?"

"You have a degree in management, right?" Matthew pointed out, "That's pretty versatile. You could probably find work anywhere."

"Or open your own restaurant," Amelia added.

"There's no way I could do that."

"Why not? You have the funds to do it, not to mention the skillset."

"It's not that easy, Amelia. I can't just leave to go follow my dreams somewhere else."

"Why not? That's what you did the first time, and that turned out alright."

"That was different!"

"How?"

"I was...I only did it to prove that I could. Because my grandfather didn't think I'd be able to do it. But now that he's dead, what's the point?"

Amelia shut her mouth and thought it over for a moment. "Yeah," she conceded, "spite is one hell of a motivator, I'll give you that. But Lovino, maybe you need to think about it in the reverse."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You were doing things because someone believed you couldn't. Well, how about you start doing things because someone believes you can. And by someone, I mean me. And Feliciano. And anyone else who's heard you talk business for more than three seconds."

"That's some pretty good advice, Mia," Matthew butted in, "You should take it."

"Now what's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"You're sitting here talking about unsung potential, and you spent the last few years dealing cards. When we were kids, all you ever talked about was getting an engineering degree and working for NASA! I know things went bad for us, Mia, I get that, but now you have a chance to get back on track. I mean, if you don't want to do that, it's fine, but you should at least do _something_ fulfilling."

"What, like become a lumberjack?"

"Ha ha. You know, you're trying to make fun of me, but I already openly admitted that I hate my job."  
"Oh, yeah, because nobody talks to you, right? Well, this time you can't blame me for stealing all the attention. Someday, Mattie, you're going to have to learn to initiate conversation. People aren't just going to come up and start talking to you."

Lovino snickered. "Unless they're told to by mysterious men because you have mafia connections that are likely linked to the murder of their relative."

"Yeah, unless that."

Matthew sighed. "I guess you're right."

All three of them sat in silence for a moment.

"Well," Amelia said, "Maybe we could all take some advice." She lifted her half-full water glass up in the air. "To moving forward?"

"To moving forward!" the other two replied, clinking their own glasses back against hers.

Lovino like the feeling of running towards something a lot more than running away from something. Not to mention that it was immensely reassuring to know that he was no longer alone. If he were better at admitting thing to himself, he might even say that he was never really alone to begin with. Regardless, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Lovino was looking forward to what was to come.


	15. Epilogue

_**Five years later.**_

Lovino yawned as he flipped the hanging sign in the window to replace the "Welcome! We're Open!" with "Sorry! We're Closed!". He took a moment to gaze out the window at the orange sky thinking briefly of how, somewhere past the buildings across the street, the sun was setting over the Atlantic. The corners of his mouth turned up briefly and he leaned slightly forward onto the broom he gripped in his hand. A second later, Lovino's moment of bliss ended when his brother's whiney voice called out from the kitchen.

"Come on, Lovi! We can afford to shut down the restaurant for _one day_. It won't kill our customers."

"The only reason we've gotten this far is because we've managed to build a reputable standing within the market. Inexplicably closing on a Saturday during one of our peak seasons is not a good way to maintain our reputation."

There was a pause.

"But Lovi, I _really_ want to go. Can't we have someone else run the kitchen?"

"Like who? The busboy? Feli, you're the head chef for a reason. None of our line cooks are experienced enough to run a weekend shift."

Feliciano stuck his head into the dining area and pouted. "I can't believe you're making me miss this _once in a lifetime event_."

Lovino rolled his eyes and began sweeping the floor around the hostess podium. "You're so dramatic. It's a graduation, not the fucking moon landing. There'll be others."

"But not for Amelia! Just the other day she was talking about how she didn't want to go to graduate school."

"She wants to go to graduate school, Feli, she's just afraid we can't afford it. But I've calculated the budget and we can, as long as we don't do anything stupid that would make customers not want to go to Antonio's." He shot his brother a sharp look. "Besides, you wouldn't even like it. Graduation ceremonies suck. You spend hours sitting in the stands listening to them give a bunch of boring speeches and list off the names of people you don't give a crap about. Then, when they finally call the person you actually came there for, they walk up for two seconds and leave."

Feliciano seemed to actually take this into consideration, albeit rather reluctantly. It didn't hurt that the tail end of their conversation was interrupted by the jingly sound of change as Ludwig walked out of the back office carrying the counted till money. As weird as it was for Lovino to accept that his little brother was in a stable romantic relationship, he appreciated the level-headedness his brother-in-law exuded in response to Feliciano's impulsiveness.

"Don't forget, Feliciano," he added gruffly, "We need to be here to set things up for that evening."

"Set things up?" He frowned in confusion for a split second before brightening up. "You mean we _are_ having a party?"

Lovino immediately spun around and pointed a stern finger in his brother's direction. "No! No party. Just a nice _private_ romantic dinner."

"But it's your _engagement_! Don't you want to share that with friends?"

The word engagement brought a deep blush across Lovino's face as he thought about the ring that was currently stashed away in the back corner of his sock drawer. "I don't want to pressure her," he answered weakly. Also, there was a small part of him that was terrified that she would say no, but he didn't want to make his fear worse by saying it out loud.

"It wouldn't pressure her!" Feliciano assured, walking towards Ludwig, "You didn't feel pressured when I proposed to you, did you, Luddy?"

Now it was Ludwigs turn to blush. "No," he admitted, before giving an apologetic look to Lovino. "But that was different. We had been discussing the merits of going through with a symbolic ceremony for months, not to mention we already had our joint checking account..."

"Gah, Luddy, you're such a robot sometimes!" He gave Ludwig a dramatic kiss on the cheek. "Embrace the romance! Feel the love!" At that, Ludwig mumbled something about transactions and hurried back to the office.

Lovino knew he wouldn't be able to convince Feliciano, but considering Feliciano didn't have a say in what happened, it didn't matter much. All they would have to do is keep his whining down to a minimum for a few more weeks.

"Listen," Lovino placated, "I want the proposal to be private, but I promise, Feli, if she says yes, I will let you throw us an engagement party."

"You mean _when_ she says yes."

" _If_ she says yes. Now get the hell back in the kitchen and finish closing. I don't want to be here all night."

Feliciano made a face, but wordlessly left the dining area. With a shake of his head, Lovino went back to sweeping the front of the restaurant.

Not too much later, while Lovino was in the middle of refilling the table salt containers, a knock on the front door made him jump. He looked up and smiled at the sight of Amelia and Matthew waving wildly through the window.

"Why are you two here?" Lovino asked as he unlocked the door for them, "I thought we were going to meet at Feliciano's for dinner?"

"We were," Amelia answered after greeting him with a quick peck, "But I got some crazy news in the mail and I had to come tell you right away."

"Who all is here?" asked Matthew, who had already crossed half of the room.

"It's just me, Feliciano, and Ludwig. We already sent everyone else home."

Hearing his name along with the rest of the commotion, Feliciano walked out of the kitchen. "Lovi? What's going...oh, hi Amelia!" He hurried over to give her a hug.

Meanwhile, Matthew knocked on the office door. Getting a good look at him, Lovino notice that he held a rolled-up newspaper in his hand, which he figured had something to do with what the siblings had to tell them. A moment later, Ludwig opened the door, confusion passing over him.

"C'mon," Amelia urged, "We have something to show you." She gestured over to the dining table she had taken a seat at.

As soon as everyone gathered around, Matthew unrolled the newspaper, revealing the headline: "CHINESE MAFIA LEADER ARRESTED". Underneath, in smaller letters, it read "YEARS LONG INTER-SYNDICATE CRIME WAR ENDED".

"Holy shit," Lovino exclaimed, "Is that talking about Wang Yao?"

"It is," Amelia confirmed, "But that's not all. Mattie, read the rest of it to them."

Matthew held the paper up to his face and cleared his throat. "I late summer 1975, the public massacre of twenty-six Vargas crime faction members, including the leader of the faction himself, 'Don' Vargas, left law enforcement in confusion as to who perpetrated the assault. Six days later, the discovery of the partially destroyed remains of siblings Ivan and Natalya Braginsky, both high-ranking members of the opposing Russian Mafia, in a secluded dump on the far southwestern side of the city led authorities to suspect a conflict between the syndicates.

"Now, nearly five years later, the involvement of a third crime syndicate has been revealed, changing what authorities previously ascertained about the case. Wang Yao, leader of the Golden Dragon Triad, an organized crime syndicate based in Chinatown, was arrested Saturday on, as of the time of this article's publishing, two counts of murder and thirty-one counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

"When inquired about the extended period of investigation for this case, lead detective Lily Vogel alluded to longstanding allegations of corruption within the police department saying 'There's reason to believe that the investigation was impeded by the leaking of confidential information.' She went on to assure that any and all instances of outside interference with the investigation would be properly addressed. More on this story as it develops."

After finishing, Matthew set down the newspaper and glanced over at Amelia, who stared at the others with wide-eyed expectancy. "Well?"she asked.

"Well what?" Lovino asked as Feliciano and Ludwig shared a worried look.

"Isn't this great news?" She grinned widely.

"Great new? Are you kidding me?"

"Lovi, it's all over for us. We don't have to worry anymore."

"Amelia, did you hear any of that? They know about Yao killing Ivan, which, if you forgot, _we were there for_. Not to mention the fact that they're looking into corruption. If he's offered any sort of plea deal, your old buddy Vash will rat us out in an instant, I'm sure of it."

"Ah, shit" Amelia mumbled, "You didn't read the note." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Lovino took it from her hand and unfolded it to see a note written in handwriting so neat it almost looked as if it were typed.

 _I have sent you this message not as a warning, but as a courtesy. I am fully aware of your desire to rid yourself of the past, but I believed notification of recent developments would be appreciated. Rest assured that though certain professionals are now involved, the true authority of this situation is none other than me. It is by my own personal design that you, nor any of your loved ones, can not and will not be connected to any events of interest. I did this out of good will and appreciation for the friendship you have given me._

 _Sincerely,_

 _The one you should have gone to nationals with._

Lovino set the note down and sighed with relief.

"What does it say?" Feliciano asked, plucking the paper from his hand.

"It's from Kiku," Amelia replied, "He's the one behind Wang Yao being arrested and he covered for us so we won't be investigated."

"Why would he do that?" Ludwig asked, his eyebrows scrunched in worried confusion.

"Well if you're asking why he covered for us, it's probably because we were best friends all through high school."

"That and he probably feels a little bad for bringing us into the wonderful world of organized crime in the first place," Matthew added.

"I thought Kiku worked for Wang," Feliciano said, "Why did he turn on his own boss?"

"Hard to say," Amelia answered, "He was always pretty reserved when it came to stating his intentions. Maybe he's planning on taking over the Triad. Or maybe he just wanted to break the whole thing up. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who convinced Wang to start the gang war in the first place."

Lovino thought back to the first time he encountered the quiet man who helped him when he needed it the most. "You really think he would do that?"

Amelia shrugged. "I know he could, if he wanted to. Kiku is scary smart, like evil genius supervillian smart."

"He seemed so nice from all the stories you told," Feliciano mused.

"Feli," Lovino replied, "He worked for an organized crime syndicate."

"So did all of us, and we're pretty nice."

"Aww, thanks Feli!" both Matthew and Amelia crooned in unison. Lovino rolled his eyes.

"Still," Feliciano continued, "I hope he's not too busy with the trials for the next few months. It would be a real shame if he couldn't come and visit us for the we…"

"Graduation!" Lovino interrupted elbowing his brother hard in the side, "I was going to invite him to your graduation."

Amelia widened her eyes. "Oh, yeah. I should call him to ask."

"Do you guys need help closing up?" Matthew asked.

"We're almost done, but some help would be great, Matt," Lovino answered quickly, eager to change the subject.

"Alright, then," Amelia stood, rubbing her hands together, "Let's get back to work."

Later that night, Amelia lit Kiku's note with a cigarette lighter and dropped it into the kitchen sink. She and Lovino watched in silence as the flames ate away at the paper until there was nothing but a small pile of ash, quickly rinsed away by a flick of the tap. When there was nothing left, the couple shared a resigned look and nodded before turning off the kitchen light and heading for their bedroom.

Soon they were settled in bed together, Lovino's arms wrapped around Amelia as her back pressed against his chest. They stayed like that for a minute, not falling asleep, but neither willing to break the silence.

At last, Amelia said Lovino's name, so softly he might not have heard it if his head hadn't been cradled so close to hers.

"Yes?" he whispered back.

"This business, with Wang being arrested and all that...does it...scare you?"

Lovino thought deeply about it and realized almost instantly that, yes, it did scare him. The thought that everything he had spent so long trying to escape coming back to destroy the life he built terrified him. He knew Amelia was only asking because she was afraid too, and he considered denying his own fear to make her feel better, but quickly dismissed that idea when he recalled the fact that he couldn't bring himself to lie to her directly.

"A little," he answered.

"Oh, good," she sighed, "I was afraid I was being paranoid. I mean, I trust Kiku with my life, but it's scary, you know? I don't like the idea of sitting around here wondering if we're going to get some knock on the door that will ruin everything. I guess that's always been a possibility though, because they've been investigating this whole time. And now that Wang's in custody, he won't be able to involve us without further incriminating himself. Same with Vash, if he's the one they caught leaking information. Okay, now I feel a lot better about this. Thanks for talking some sense into me, hun."

"No problem," Lovino chuckled.

"I'm sorry, Lovi," she continued with a breathy laugh, "I was just worried about things going wrong. I really really like where we are now, and I don't want anything to change."

Lovino blinked. "Nothing at all?" he asked softly.

"I mean, I wouldn't mind some good changes."

"Oh, okay."

They fell into another brief silence that was once again broken by Amelia whispering Lovino's name. He hummed in response.

"Earlier, Feliciano was saying you wanted to invite Kiku somewhere and you butt in to say graduation."

Lovino's half-lidded eyes popped wide open. "Yeah?" he responded carefully.

"He wasn't going to say graduation was he?"

Lovino swallowed thickly. "No, he wasn't." Lovino thought vaguely of all the different ways her would kick his brother's ass later.

"It's a little early to be planning our wedding, don't you think? You haven't even asked me yet."

Lovino forced out a chuckle. "Yeah, well you know Feliciano. He gets excited and jumps the gun."

Amelia hummed. "If I remember correctly, he was talking about _you_ wanting to invite Kiku."

Lovino decided right then that he was going to do more than just kick Feliciano's ass. "Uhh, well nothing is concrete."

"I'll say. You don't even know if I'd agree to marry you."

His attention grabbed. Lovino propped himself up on one elbow to lean around and get a look at Amelia's face. Her eyes were almost closed and she wore the ghost of a smile. "Would you really say no if I asked you?" he whispered with trepidation.

Relief washed over him when the corners of her mouth quirked up into a mischievous grin. "I don't know," she answered, "I guess you'll have to ask me to find out."

Lovino grinned in response and laid back down, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her closer. "Alright," he agreed,"I will."

With that he drifted to sleep, aided in no small part by the warmth and happiness that flooded through every inch of his being.


End file.
